Performance of Undamaged and Damaged Diesel Particulate Filters

The tightening of the limit values for health-endangering exhaust-gas components, together with the current discussion of climate change caused by greenhouse-gas emissions, call for the use of new technologies to reduce fuel consumption and pollutant emissions. The main emphases in this respect are put on optimising air management, developing new combustion processes and improving process management, researching hybrid concepts and alternative fuels and designing the most possible consumption-neutral exhaust-gas treatment systems with high efficiency levels and conversion rates. In diesel engines, the use of a diesel particulate filter to reduce the particulate emissions after the engine is currently the most effective measure.

A time-resolved determination of the particulate emissions in transient engine operation has not been called for by the legislators up to now. Likewise, the measurement technology, which is suitable for this purpose, has hitherto not been available. This article considers the examination of the loading and especially the regeneration behaviour of diesel particulate filters by using modern particulate measurement technology for high time-resolution determination of the soot-mass and particulate number concentration. Damaged diesel particulate filters have been taken into special consideration.