Experimental Characterisation of Real Driving Cycles in Diésel Passenger Vehicles under Different Environmental Conditions

Abstract

The future of Internal Combustion Engines in the automotive sector seems uncertain, to some extent, due to the recent changes in type approval regulations. Current regulations have considerably reduced the engine pollutant emissions limits, as well as introduced more demanding testing conditions. The introduction of real driving cycles presented a challenging issue for car manufacturers when homologating their vehicles, since the traditional and undemanding New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) certification cycle has been replaced by more severe cycles such as World Light-Duty Test Cycle (WLTC) and Real Driving Emissions (RDE).This study, in the first place, presents a methodology for implementing RDE cycles in an engine test bench. Even knowing that the essence of RDE regulation is to assess actual driving conditions, reproducing RDE cycles in a test bench is of great interest since, the controlled and reproducible conditions that can be achieved in a laboratory lead to valuable information to understand engine behaviour in real driving conditions, and therefore contribute to engine development. This document applies the most recent European Community regulation and sets the essential steps to carry out an RDE cycle in an engine test bench.Secondly, as the feasibility of a test bench to perform RDE cycles has been proven, different RDE cycles have been performed under different dynamic solicitations and external conditions such as ambient or intake air temperatures. After that, the pollutant's emission and fuel mass consumption were analysed with the aim of characterising RDE cycles and conditions. Furthermore, a comparison of RDE test emissions and fuel consumption versus those obtained from steady-state tests has been carried out, where very small discrepancies were found.