Comparative field evaluation of vehicle cruise speed and acceleration level impacts on hot stabilized emissions

The main objectives of this paper are two fold. First, the paper evaluates the impact of vehicle cruise speed and acceleration levels on vehicle fuel-consumption and emission rates using field data gathered under real-world driving conditions. Second, it validates the VT-Micro model for the modeling of real-world conditions. Specifically, an on-board emission-measurement device was used to collect emissions of oxides of nitrogen, hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide using a light-duty test vehicle. The analysis demonstrates that vehicle fuel-consumption and emission rates per-unit distance are optimum in the range of 60-90 km/h, with considerable increase outside this optimum range. The study demonstrates that as the level of aggressiveness for acceleration maneuvers increases, the fuel-consumption and emission rates per maneuver decrease because the vehicle spends less time accelerating. However, when emissions are gathered over a sufficiently long fixed distance, fuel-consumption and mobile-source emission rates per-unit distance increase as the level of acceleration increases because of the history effects that accompany rich-mode engine operations. In addition, the paper demonstrates the validity of the VT-Micro framework for modeling steady-state vehicle fuel-consumption and emission behavior. Finally, the research demonstrates that the VT-Micro framework requires further refinement to capture non-steady-state history behavior when the engine operates in rich mode.