Computer-aided characterization of catalytic filters in automotive exhaust gas aftertreatment

• Date: 19. 10. 2023
• Time: 14:00 - 15:30
• Address:
  Sokolovská 83, Praha
• Room: K3
• Speaker: Martin Isoz

The EURO 6c norm, valid since 2017, requires both the gasoline and diesel combustion engines to be equipped with both catalytic converters for the abatement of gaseous pollutants and filters that trap the particulate matter (PM). This EURO 6c requirement resulted in combining structurally similar catalytic converters and PM filters into a single device, the catalytic filter (CF). The catalytic filter is a cylindrical monolith with a large number of alternately-plugged parallel channels in a honeycomb arrangement. The monolith walls are porous, and the catalytic material is deposited both inside and on them. As a device, CF has favorable properties with respect to the overall heat loss of the exhaust gas aftertreatment system and facilitates the system regeneration. However, the device's properties are strongly dependent on the catalytic material distribution within it. In this talk, we will present a multiscale and multiphysics numerical framework for computational characterization of the catalytic filter fundamental characteristics, i.e., pressure loss, conversion of gaseous pollutants, and PM filtration efficiency. The framework is built on the open-source finite-volume library OpenFOAM modified to allow for (i) the use of real-life CF geometry obtained via X-ray tomography, (ii) simulating nonisothermal heterogeneously catalyzed reactions, and (iii) coupling Lagrangian particle tracking algorithms with PM deposition in a Eulerian computational mesh. An emphasis will be placed on the architecture of the used solvers, and computational points.