Pre-DPF water injection technique for pressure drop control in loaded wall-flow diesel particulate filters

Under this context, new solutions are required to improve the state of the art DPF soot loading to pressure drop ratio. This paper presents a novel technique based on pre-DPF water injection to reduce the DPF pressure drop under soot loading conditions by disrupting its dependence on soot/ash loading. It provides benefits to engine fuel economy and also higher flexibility for DPF regeneration and maintenance. The work covers a test campaign performed in a passenger car turbocharged Diesel engine equipped with a wall-flow DPF. The main objective is to describe the technique, to provide a figure of its potential for pressure drop control and fuel consumption reduction. The results of the experiments also confirm soot and ash loading capacity increase and demonstrate the lack of negative effects on filtration efficiency and active and passive regeneration.