Freezing the emissions hardware with confidence is a critical factor in reducing complexity of production EMS applications enabling aggressive project timing to be delivered with high quality.

IP has developed a strong capability in this area and we can typically optimise hardware and prove out emissions in 3-4 months.

The first part of our process is to define the range of potential, feasible solutions. As a starting point the system requirement is reviewed as a ratio of HC emissions to mass of fuel used. Other requirements and constraints such as package, performance or carry over components are also considered and compared to best practice or benchmark values (e.g. critical secondary air dimensions, cell density etc).

The next phase is the optimisation of the cold phase. The initial part of this is ensuring that the trajectory of critical parameters (e.g. combustion phasing, lambda, cam phasing) can be accurately controlled. Strategy modelling and a small amount of test work allows desktop generation of calibrations that will accurately follow desired behaviour saving a great many iterative tests.

DoE testing is then used to optimise variables as required and provide enough information to specify a suitable system and calibration. As a final confirmation the proposed solution is tested including refinement of the warm phase parameters so that the required performance is proved.

Using an optimised catalyst + air injection system IP has successfully demonstrated a repeatable level of 0.025% of fuel even on the heaviest saloon car and SUV applications enabling these vehicles to meet Euro 5 without the need for HC adsorber or active catalyst heating. For high volume, smaller vehicles the emphasis is typically on cost optimisation through reduction of feature content or precious metal loading.