Novel insights into the NOx emissions characteristics in PEMS tests of a heavy-duty vehicle under different payloads

Abstract

Real Drive Emission (RDE) test with Portable Emission Measurement System (PEMS) is a widely adopted way to assess vehicle emission compliance. However, the current NOx emissions calculation method stipulated in the China VI emission standard easily ignores the NOx emissions during cold start and low-power operation. To study the effect of cold start and low-power operation on the calculation of NOx emissions in the PEMS test, in this study, a China VI Heavy-Duty Vehicle (HDV) for urban use was used to conduct PEMS tests under various vehicle payload conditions. The data analysis results show that the increase in vehicle payload is beneficial to reducing the specific NOx emissions and passing the NOx emission compliance test because the increased payload improves the NOx conversion efficiency of the SCR system. Cold start duration has no obvious relationship with vehicle payload, accounting for only about 4∼6% in each test, but contributing more than 30% of NOx emissions. Due to the effect of the power threshold and the 90th cumulative percentile, the cold start data has little influence on the result of the NOx emissions assessment and the maximum variation of the NOx emissions result in this study is an 8% rise. For the HDV for urban use, the variation of the power threshold resulting from vehicle payload is small, no more than 2% in this study. The presence of the power threshold makes almost only the low-power operation in the second half of urban driving have an impact on the NOx emissions calculation, which may make more than 50% of NOx emissions in the PEMS test be neglected. The impact of the low-power operation on NOx emissions calculation result will be significantly enhanced if all windows are considered in the Moving Average Window (MAW) method. In the meantime, the degree of variation is closely related to the NOx emissions level during the first half of urban driving. The maximum deterioration of NOx emission assessment result can be more than 90% in this study.

Keywords: Cold start; Low-power operation; NOx emissions; Payload; Portable emission measurement system (PEMS).