A Numerical Investigation of the Combined Effects of Initial Temperature and Catalyst Activity on the Dynamics of Soot Combustion in a Catalytic Diesel Particulate Filter

In the work presented in this paper, the combined effects of initial temperature and catalyst activity on the regeneration dynamics of a catalytic diesel particulate filter (DPF) have been investigated. To this end, CFD-based simulations of soot combustion in a single-channel configuration were performed. In the model, all the soot trapped inside the filter was assumed to be in contact with the catalyst. The initial temperature of the filter was varied over a wide range independently of the inlet gas temperature, which was kept constant. Numerical results have shown that three main different behaviors arise depending on catalyst activity. At low catalyst activity, as the initial temperature is increased, an abrupt transition occurs from a regime of slow regeneration, characterized by long times (around 10 min) and low peak temperatures (~ 700 K), to a regime of fast regeneration, characterized by short times (