Predicting Pressure Drop, Temperature, and Particulate Matter Distribution of a Catalyzed Diesel Particulate Filter Using a Multi-Zone Model Including Cake Permeability

A multi-zone particulate filter (MPF) model was developed to predict pressure drop and PM oxidation of a catalyzed diesel particulate filter (CPF). The MPF model builds upon our previous work (Mahadevan et al., J Emiss Control Sci Technol 1:183–202, 2015; Mahadevan et al., J Emiss Control Sci Technol 1:255–283, 2015) by adding a new multi-zone version of a classical 1-D filtration model (Konstandopoulos and Johnson, 1989) to account for PM filtration within the substrate wall and PM cake of a CPF. In addition, pressure drop (∆P) simulation capability was also developed for the MPF model in order to simulate the pressure drop across the substrate wall and PM cake of the CPF. A cake permeability model was developed based on fundamental research findings in the literature. The PM cake and wall pressure drop simulation accounts for the wall and cake permeability variation during loading, PM oxidation, and an additional post-loading after oxidation. This extended MPF model was calibrated using 18 runs of experimental data from a Cummins ISL engine that consisted of passive and active regeneration data sets for ULSD, B10, and B20 fuels. The validation results show that the new MPF model can predict PM loading with a maximum root mean square (RMS) error of 7.4% and predict (∆P) across the filter with an RMS error of within 7.2%. It is found that the permeability of the PM cake layer increases rapidly during PM oxidation. The increase in permeability was attributed to the damage in the PM cake and was simulated using the newly developed cake permeability model. The increased permeability of the damaged PM cake layer and oxidation of cake PM leads to near zero cake PM pressure drop during PM oxidation for the passive and active regeneration experiments.