Methodology for measurement of diesel particle size distributions from a city bus working in real traffic conditions

The study of particulate matter (PM) and nitrogen oxides emissions of diesel engines is nowadays a necessary step towards pollutant emission reduction. For a complete evaluation of PM emissions and its size characterization, one of the most challenging goals is to adapt the available techniques and the data acquisition procedures to the measurement and to propose a methodology for the interpretation of instantaneous particle size distributions (PSD) of combustion-derived particles produced by a vehicle during real driving conditions. In this work, PSD from the exhaust gas of a city bus operated in real driving conditions with passengers have been measured. For the study, the bus was equipped with a rotating disk diluter coupled to an air supply thermal conditioner (with an evaporating tube), the latter being connected to a TSI Engine Exhaust Particle Sizer spectrometer. The main objective of this work has been to propose an alternative procedure for evaluating the influence of several transient sequences on PSD emitted by a city bus used in real driving conditions with passengers. The transitions studied were those derived from the combination of four possible sequences or categories during real driving conditions: idle, acceleration, deceleration with fuel consumption and deceleration without fuel consumption. The analysis methodology used in this work proved to be a useful tool for a better understanding of the phenomena related to the determination of PSD emitted by a city bus during real driving conditions with passengers.