The new “System for Emission Sampling And Measurement” (SESAM) based on a Fourier Transform InfraRed Analyzer (FTIR) results from a cooperation between Nicolet, USA, and Volkswagen, Germany. It will be marketed by Siemens world-wide.
SESAM is designed to measure and calculate modal and integral concentration values of up to twenty-five different automotive exhaust gas components and to determine the respective modal and integral emission masses during a FTP-test. The gas components to be measured can be defined by means of software without any change of the hardware configuration.
The measuring sensitivity reaches from low concentration of several parts per million to high levels of several percent, thus covering up to five orders of magnitude in one individual measuring range, depending on the components to be measured. The time resolution is one second.
Several problems have had to be solved testing SESAM in an automobile exhaust gas test laboratory.
Tests were performed under “laboratory conditions” using gas mixtures with known concentrations as well as with exhaust gas samples under “emission test cell conditions”. Comparison tests with the conventional technique performed on vehicles with different engine concepts and different fuels yielded results which are equivalent to those of the conventional sampling and measuring systems.