Details:
Emission Control System Durability Assessment at the Development Phase
Funding
GSRT (Support of SMEs for R&D Activities – 26SMEs2009)
Partners
Exothermia, Simtec, DTech, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Technology Used
Ansys Fluent
Challenge:
Modern cars are equipped with advanced pollution control systems, that employ catalytic converters, soot filters and other means for the cleaning of the exhaust gas, to meet the vehicle emission standards. Along with the usually expensive experiments, computer simulations are increasingly used in the design process of after-treatment systems, to achieve the required level of pollutants’ reduction after the engine.
An integrated methodology for assessing the lifetime of emission control systems was developed and used by the collaborating companies, based on simulation tools. The goal was the design and assessment of the pollution control system for its whole life span. The simulations were supported with experiments performed by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Solution:
Contrary to the previous CFD efforts, that aimed at calculating the inlet flow profiles at the after-treatment device, the present approach allowed for the performance evaluation of the complete system in terms of emissions reduction. Axisuite®, the state-of-the-art after-treatment modeling software was coupled to Ansys Fluent through User Defined Functions, to simulate all the physicochemical phenomena that take part in the pollution control system.
The simulation for the whole lifetime of the system allowed for its assessment in the design phase. The final outcome of the project was a new simulation software and methodology based on the interconnection of the software of Exothermia SA with ANSYS commercial CFD packages.