Study on the Influence of the Cell Structure on the Pressure Drop of Gasoline Particulate Filter

Abstract

The cell structure of a gasoline particulate filter (GPF) is made up of thousands of individual cells. Although the symmetric square cell structure of the GPF is commonly used internationally, several cell designs have been proposed to reduce the pressure drop in the GPF trapping process. The aim of this paper was to use AVL-Fire software to establish GPF models of different cell structures, mainly including the symmetric square cell structure, asymmetric square cell structure, and symmetric hexagonal cell structure, and analyze the GPF pressure drop characteristics of different cell structures according to the carrier structural parameters and altitude. The results show that compared with the pressure drop of the symmetric square cell structure, the pressure drop of the asymmetric cell structure with inlet/outlet side length ratios ranging from 1.1 to 1.4 is decreased by 4.61%, 9.07%, 12.19%, and 13.22%, respectively, and the pressure drop of the symmetric hexagonal cell structure is decreased by 33.17%. Both asymmetric and symmetric hexagonal cell structure GPFs can decrease the pressure drop during trapping by increasing the cell density. From 200 CPSI to 300 CPSI, the pressure drop of the asymmetric cell structure with inlet/outlet side length ratios ranging from 1.1 to 1.4 is decreased by 20.43%, 20.53%, 20.39%, and 18.56%, respectively, and the pressure drop of the symmetric hexagonal cell structure is decreased by 18.70%. The pressure drop values of GPFs with asymmetric and symmetric hexagonal cell structures show an increasing trend with an increasing filter wall thickness and inlet/outlet plug length. The pressure drop values of GPFs with asymmetric and symmetric hexagonal cell structures show an increasing trend with an increasing altitude, and the larger the inlet/outlet ratio, the more significant the increase in the pressure drop.