Measurement of gasoline exhaust particulate matter emissions with a wide-range EGR in a heavy-duty diesel engine

A large number of measurement techniques have been developed or adapted from other fields to measure various parameters of engine particulates. With the strict limits given by regulations on pollutant emissions, many advanced combustion strategies have been developed towards cleaner combustion. Exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) is widely applied to suppress nitrogen oxide (NOx) and reduce soot emissions. On the other hand, gasoline starts to be utilized in compression ignition engines due to great potential in soot reduction and high engine efficiency. New engine trends raise the need for good sensitivity and suitable accuracy of the PM measurement techniques to detect particulates with smaller size and low particulate mass emissions. In this work, we present a comparison between different measurement techniques for particulate matter (PM) emissions in a compression ignition engine running on gasoline fuel. A wide-range of EGR was used with lambda varied from 3 down to 1. The compared equipment includes AVL smoke meter, AVL Micro Soot Sensor, Pegasor and Cambustion Differential Mobility Spectrometer (DMS). The goal of this paper is to compare the recorded values and show the sensitivity of the instruments to soot properties altering, in both lean and stoichiometric combustion situations.