MRI: Aquisition of Fast Response Gas Analysis Equipment For Advanced Automotive Emission Control and Diagnostic System

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This MRI grant will be used to create a state-of-the-art experimental facility for dynamic measurement, modeling, diagnosis and control of transient automotive emissions. Catalytic exhaust after-treatment systems play a key role in reducing automotive emissions, but to meet increasingly stringent legislated environmental targets, (as specified in SULEV or OBD II for example), it is now necessary to incorporate their dynamic behavior within the on-board engine control and diagnostic system. To measure and model these dynamics experimentally requires the state-of-the-art, dual-channel, fast-response gas analysis equipment. The MRI grant will also be used to acquire a hardware/software system for data acquisition, and for rapid prototyping access to the engine management and diagnostic system, in order to be able to implement and test the algorithms developed. It is believed that there are currently only four facilities worldwide (within academia) that have fast response gas analysis capability, one of which was constructed at the University of Sussex (UK), by the principal investigator. The interdisciplinarity inherent in a system which has an engine, electronic control, and the catalytic after-treatment elements is reflected in the cross-departmental team of investigators who come from the Mechanical, Chemical, and Electrical & Computer Engineering departments within the College of Engineering at Villanova University. For each of these departments, the facility would strongly enhance the Undergraduate and Masters student exposure to the automotive industry in a geographic area, which is weak in this regard. The facility will be a regional resource, and is supported by Drexel and Temple Universities as well as local industry. Industrial support and cost share comes from a broad cross-section of the automotive industry including end user Ford Motor Company, international automotive consultants Ricardo Inc., locally based consultants, Environex, and local catalyst manufacturer Johnson Matthey.