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Monodisperse and polydisperse Sodium Chloride (NaCl) particles were used to calibrate the solid particle penetration for the Volatile Particle Remover (VPR) in a Horiba prototype Solid Particle Counting System (SPCS). Prior to the calibration, dilution ratios on the SPCS are verified carefully with a flame ionization analyzer (FIA). Size distributions for polydisperse aerosols upstream and downstream of the Volatile Particle Remover (VPR) were measured with a Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS). It is found that overall penetrations for polydisperse aerosols are larger than 95%. Geometric standard deviations from the raw and the diluted by the VPR are within ±1.5% difference. Thus, shapes of size distributions aren't changed after dilution. Geometric mean diameters shift a little, on average ±5% after dilution. Therefore, the VPR doesn't change the aerosol characteristics after the aerosol is diluted and heated up to 320 °C.

Diesel engine has been used as a power source in many fields, because of its high thermal efficiency and durability. But its exhaust gas emissions, such as NOx or Particulate Matter, are considered as the matter which brought the air pollution. Thus, it is needed to reduce such harmful matters to agree with the level set by the legislation. In this study, the engine performance of the mixed fuel comprised of DME (Dimethyl Ether) and marine diesel oil was experimentally examined. Because of the molecule properties of DME, it emits no soot in combustion. At the atmospheric condition, DME can be liquefied with rising in its pressure. When liquefied DME is injected in combustion chambers, the flashing energy is supposed to be useful as the atomization of other liquid fuels. A small high-speed direct injection diesel engine was used as the test engine. Its bore and stroke were 92mm and 96mm, and the compression ratio was 17.7.

A Solid Particle Counting System (SPCS) has been developed according to the ECE draft regulation proposed by the particle measurement program (PMP). In the previous report the basic performance of the SPCS has been mentioned in detail [1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6]. It has been reported that the SPCS demonstrates very stable dilution of sample with air and the error of real time dilution factor is less than 6% up to the total dilution factor of 1000. Penetration of solid particles through the SPCS is over 95% and volatile particles removal efficiency is over 99%. In this study the SPCS has been used to investigate the soot emission behavior from different vehicles with different after-treatment technologies. Direct injection (DI) diesel vehicles without diesel particulate filter (DPF), and with different DPFs (catalyzed and non-catalyzed) have been tested. Direct injection gasoline (DIG) vehicle with oxidation and NOx reduction catalysts have also been tested.

Continuous measurement of dilute exhaust gas from the CVS system, which provides gas concentrations proportional to the mass of emissions, is widely used for modal mass analysis of exhaust emission. Recently, exhaust gas flow rate measurement devices have become commercially available. Cost-effective raw exhaust modal mass analysis will be feasible with a combination of the new exhaust gas flow meters and fast response gas analyzers. In this paper, the benefits of raw exhaust modal mass measurement and the impacts of response time for the gas analyzer on the accuracy of exhaust mass calculations are discussed. Gas analyzer system with enhanced speed of response has been developed by hardware modification applied to the existing conventional bench system. De-convolution or inverse digital filter techniques that compensate the delay in the exhaust sampling system and the gas analyzer are described with comparisons to the hardware modifications.

Particulate matter (PM) emission from vehicles is one of the biggest issues in terms of environmental protection and influence to human body. Thus, a variety of measurement technologies have been develop so far. Currently, a gravimetric method is most commonly used in the automotive industry, partially because it is specified in the regulations. This method uses a combination of a dilution tunnel and a filter that collects the PM from the diluted sample gas with subsequent weighting by a micro balance. However, since this technique is a batch measurement, it is impossible to determine at what point of the emissions test the Soot, SOF (Soluble Organic Fraction), and the total PM are emitted. Thus the demand for real-time PM measurement under transient test conditions has increased.

For the purposes of environmental protection, regulations of particulate matter are becoming more stringent year by year. Accordingly, engine systems have been improved and particulate emissions are much lower compared to those of previous engine systems. The automotive industry generally uses a gravimetric method to quantify particulate emissions. It is becoming increasingly difficult to quantify particulate emissions using a conventional gravimetric balance because the amount of particulates continues to decline. In order to overcome this problem, a new method has been developed that uses gas analyzers to measure potentially as much as several micrograms of particulates. Furthermore, with this method, it is possible to simultaneously analyze volatile organic fraction (VOF), soot, and sulfates. The particles collected by a quartz filter are placed in a furnace at a specific temperature, and VOF and sulfates are vaporized in an inert atmosphere.

Some volumes of gas oil and ethanol were mixed to the rape-seed oil to examine the engine performance characteristics. A 4-cycle indirect injection diesel engine was used as the test engine, and exhaust emissions were measured together with cylinder pressure history in variation of the engine loads. The single droplet combustion test was also carried out. Combustion processes in the heated constant volume vessel were observed by using of a high-speed video camera. From the experiments, it is obtained that rape-seed oils take longer combustion duration compared with gas oils. And addition of ethanol promotes the micro explosion of fuel droplets. These features affect to the properties of exhaust emissions from the engine.

In order to develop the engines that emit only small amount of Particulate Matter (PM), there are various demands for measurement techniques for PM, such as real-time measurement, low-mass measurement, and analysis in short time. This paper reviews two kinds of instruments that have been newly introduced for PM measurement. One is the real-time PM analyzer applying two Flame Ionization Detectors (FID). This method utilizes an area accumulation technique for spike-shaped signals that are observed when soot particles are fed into a FID detector. And Soluble Organic Fraction (SOF) can be calculated continuously from difference of signals of two detectors. Another is the low-mass PM analyzer based on process of vaporization, oxidization and deoxidization. The performances of these two measurement techniques are described in this paper, using model samples and actual particulate.

This paper presents a technique for examining “Goodness of Fit” of polynomial least square curves using “errorless” data. (The errors in “real world” data tend to mask a polynomial curve's lack of fit). A method of assessing the “quality” of real data before attempting to fit a curve to the data is also presented. If data “quality” proves satisfactory, a cubic spline curve can be generated which provides a much better fit to the data than can ever be attained using polynomial curves.

In order to control diesel engine emission, several after-treatment technologies have been studied and developed to reduce particulate matter (PM) and nitrogen oxides. Such reduction is making it hard to measure the mass of such pollutants. In the present study, a new method to analyze nitrogen compounds in vehicle particulate has been described. The method is based on the technique for separate analysis of SOF, soot and sulfates in particulate, which has been previously reported by the authors. The new method utilizes oxidation process in a furnace at high temperature and a chemiluminescence detector (CLD) to measure generated NO and NO2. In this paper, principle and concept of the method has been described. In addition, feasibility of the method for analyzing nitrogen compounds in vehicle PM has been discussed, with practical experiments using modeled samples and actual particulate.

The European Union has announced the next term emission regulations for light-duty vehicles which include particle number (PN) emission standards. The protocol for PN counting for the regulation is described in UNECE Regulation No.83. The PN counting system required for this regulation should consist of a Volatile Particle Remover (VPR) and a Condensation Particle Counter (CPC). The regulation also requires calibration of the VPR's Particle Concentration Reduction Factor (PCRF) periodically. Since the PCRF is directly used in the calculation of PN emission, an improper calibration of the factor can cause a significant error of PN emission result. This paper investigates propriety to use NaCl particles generated by atomizing method in the PCRF calibration as reference particles. As a result, it is shown that the NaCl particles can be used in PCRF calibration because of the sufficient stability when appropriate thermal treatment is applied.

An approach for raw exhaust gas sampling, different from the conventional diluted exhaust gas sampling method, has been adopted for a solid particle counting system developed in the previous study. The system has been applied for evaluating solid particle emission from a DI diesel engine with DPF. In addition the filtration efficiency of the DPF has been tested from the real time concentrations, measured at upstream and downstream of the DPF. High accuracy and stability of measurement of the system against high exhaust gas pressure condition have been confirmed. The system response satisfies the requirement of ISO 8178-11. Excellent correlation of direct sampling and diluted gas sampling has been achieved with this system. It is found that the filtration efficiency changes during the engine test cycle and is strongly affected by the pre-conditioning of DPF.

The accuracy of low-level emission measurements has become increasingly important, due to the development and implementation of ULEV, SULEV, and PZEV vehicles. Measurement of these decreasing levels of automotive emissions requires new sampling and measuring techniques. Several alternative emission sampling techniques have been investigated to minimize measurement variability and maximize system repeatability. An alternative technique to obtain accurate low-level emissions measurement from SULEV vehicles is the Bag Mini-Diluter, which uses a proportional signal from an Exhaust Volume Measurement Device to sample vehicle exhaust. Crucial to successful proportional sampling of vehicle exhaust flow is the performance of the Exhaust Flow Measurement Device. This study evaluates an Exhaust Volume Measurement Device commonly used with a Bag Mini-Diluter.

A sulfur analyzer utilizing an ultraviolet fluorescent (UVF) detector has been developed to measure sulfur components in vehicle emissions. Generally, it is considered that an UVF detector cannot be used to measure sulfur components in vehicle emission due to a significant interference from NO in sample gases. In this study, an O3 injection technique has been developed to eliminate NO interference. Using this technique, the interference from NO has been reduced to less than 0.01 ppm with 3000 ppm NO. These result show a capability of utilizing UVF with this O3 injection technique to measure sulfur components in vehicle emissions including emissions with high concentrations of NO. An oxidation catalyst has also been evaluated to measure total reduced sulfur, TRS.

The environmental effects of particulate matter (PM) emissions from vehicles are an increasing concern to those concerned with air quality. A variety of technologies have been developed to measure exhaust particulates. The automotive industry generally uses the gravimetric method to quantify particulate emissions. This method uses a combination of a dilution tunnel and filter to collect PM from the diluted sample gas. The collected PM is later weighed on a microbalance. Because this technique is a batch measurement, it is not possible to determine at what point of an emissions test drive cycle the soot, soluble organic fraction (SOF) and total PM are emitted. A more accurate characterization of PM emissions will require real-time PM measurement under transient test conditions.

Diesel engine has fuel combustion capability in various high density oil such as residual fuels or biofuels derived from fossil or living matter. But for commercial use, these fuels except bio diesel fuel (BDF) should be heated, separated and filtered by equipment and dosed or mixed with additive or distillate oil etc. before being supplied to the engine in order to improve combustibility. This study aims to illuminate fuel characteristic of blend contained woody pyrolysis oil (WPO) which is high viscosity and incombustible, and dimethyl ether (DME) whose emission of combustion has no soot particle. This paper describes thermo-physical property of neat WPO and the blend on the basis of the evaluation of fuel fluidity by measurement and calculation of viscosity. According to the result, it was confirmed that the fluidity of WPO was improved by mixing DME and the approximate viscosity expressions at any temperature of WPO and the blend were good accuracy.

Behavior of particle emission from small non-road engines is still unknown which may have some unavoidable health risk. Investigation of particle emission from small non-road engine has made the main objective in this study. For this purpose a particle counting system has been developed according to the PMP protocol. The investigation was limited to only number counting of solid and volatile particle emission from a small diesel powered electric generator set. Especially the relative emission of solid and volatile particles for different load conditions has been investigated. Measurement was attempted by controlling the dilution air temperature and temperature of an evaporation unit installed inside the particle counting system. It was found that the small diesel engine used in the generator set emits huge number of volatile particles depending on operating condition.