Thermal and fluid flow analysis of innovative Cleanalytic catalytic converter

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With increasingly more stringent emission standards as well as higher fuel economy requirements for modern vehicles, the need for improved or new catalytic converter technologies continues to grow. A new generation of catalytic converters, designed and patented by Vida Holdings, offers improved thermal management of the converter over traditional catalytic converters resulting in improved emissions and fuel economy as well as reduced cost. In this design, a thin layer of insulating material is placed inside the ceramic honeycomb of the catalytic converter, dividing the ceramic substrate into an inner and an outer flow zones. The improvement in the performance of the catalytic converter is attributed to the controlled heat diffusion from the inner to the outer brick zones which also improve the flow distribution through the converter. In order to design and develop this technology for different platforms, Vida relies heavily on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations. These simulations require calibration and validation to properly model the flow details through the catalytic converter and determine the optimal CleanalyticTM design for the best possible performance. Therefore, in this project, a detailed experimental investigation will be conducted in order to evaluate the thermal and fluid flow characteristics of the CleanalyticTM catalytic converter compared to the baseline converters. These experiments are essential for validating the current hypothesis as well as calibrate and validate Vidas CFD models and will allow for a better CleanalyticTM design in order to maximize its performance.