Development of the model for a diesel engine catalytic converter

Abstract

One of the key issues of the modern engine development is to comply with today’s stringent emission standards. It forces the manufacturers to enhance in-engine and after treatment emission reduction technologies continuously. The selective catalytic reduction (SCR) is still the most effective technique for nitrogen oxides removal from exhaust gases of vehicles with diesel engines. Numerical modelling is widely used for SCR systems development and assessment. In this paper, a simplified one-dimensional numerical model of diesel SCR catalyst, which was implemented in Matlab, is described. The algorithm for automatic mesh generation describing real cross-section geometry of the catalyst block and the calculation procedure allowing to take into account non-uniform distribution of the gas flow parameters at the catalyst inlet are presented. Model was validated by the experimental data available in the literature. Numerical simulations for the full-scale modern SCR catalyst were carried out. The effect of the gas velocity non-uniformity at the catalyst inlet on the overall NOx reduction efficiency was evaluated.