Assessment of the catalyst state during real life use

In order to fulfill present and future emission standards in-service conformity gains in importance. Furthermore, it increases the necessity to understand the evolution of catalysts and their performance while aging. In this context, the Institute for Internal Combustion Engines and Powertrain Systems of the Technische Universität Darmstadt is monitoring a vehicle of a logistic company equipped with a data-logging-system during its daily delivery mission over a period of three years. This setup records environment, driver behavior, vehicle, engine and exhaust-aftertreatment data during daily usage. Unlike test bench measurements, the comparison and rating of different systems in real-life requires new methods as the always changing boundary conditions create a lack of reproducibility.Therefore the goal of the presented methodology is the assessment of the catalyst state during its real-life use. It is relying on the data provided by the vehicle ECU and does not require further sensors. The main gain of the methodology described in this study is the continuous evaluation of the catalyst performance and the mission profile independent rating of the catalyst state. It is therefore usable within the development process of a catalyst as part of the field validation as well as a monitoring tool for pre-fail recognition during regular vehicle use.