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The automotive aftermarket industry is an extremely cost competitive market to say the least. Aftermarket manufacturers are sought by customers primarily for their ability to replace an OES (Original Equipment Supplier) for a fraction of the cost. This forces the manufacturers to yield on performance abilities to get a share in the market place. The TWC system in gasoline vehicles not only acts as an emissions reduction device but is an integral part of the overall vehicle performance itself, especially since the introduction of OBD (On-Board Diagnostics) II systems in 1995. An inefficient catalyst not only leads to excessive tailpipe emissions but also acts detrimental to vehicle fueling and hence overall performance. The aftermarket catalyst industry which is regulated by EPA (United States Environmental Protection Agency) and CARB (California Air Resource Board) for gasoline engines is subject to meeting a mandatory performance standard for the same reason.

Three-way catalyst equipped stoichiometric natural gas vehicles have proven to be an effective alternative fuel strategy that has shown superior low NOx benefits in comparison to diesels equipped with SCR. However, recent studies have shown the TWC activity to contribute to high levels of tailpipe ammonia emissions. Although a non-regulated pollutant, ammonia is a potent pre-cursor to ambient secondary PM formation. Ammonia (NH3) is an inevitable catalytic byproduct of TWCduring that results also corresponds to lowest NOx emissions. The main objective of the study is to develop a passive SCR based NH3 reduction strategy that results in an overall reduction of NH3 as well as NOx emissions from a stoichiometric spark ignited natural gas engine. The study investigated the characteristics of Fe-based and Cu-based zeolite SCR catalysts in storage, and desorption of ammonia at high exhaust temperature conditions, that are typical of stoichiometric natural gas engines.

Heavy duty tractor-trailers under freeway operations consume about 65% of the total engine shaft energy to overcome aerodynamic drag force. Vehicles are exposed to on-road crosswinds which cause change in pressure distribution with a relative wind speed and yaw angle. The objective of this study was to analyze the drag losses as a function of on-road wind conditions, on-road vehicle position and trajectory. Using coefficient of drag (CD) data available from a study conducted at NASA Ames, Geographical Information Systems model, time-varying weather data and road data, a generic model was built to identify the yaw angles and the relative magnitude of wind speed on a given route over a given time period. A region-based analysis was conducted for a study on interstate trucking operation by employing I-79 running through West Virginia as a case study by initiating a run starting at 12am, 03/03/2012 out to 12am, 03/05/2012.