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Air pollution caused by exhaust particulate matter (PM) from vehicular traffic is a major health issue. Increasingly strict regulations of vehicle emission have been introduced and efforts have been put on both the suppression of particulate formation inside the engine cylinders and the development of after-treatment technologies such as filters. With modern direct injected engines that produce a large number of really small sub-micron particles, the focus has increased even further and now also includes a number count. The problem of calculating particle trajectories in flow ducts like vehicle exhaust systems is challenging but important to further improve the technology. The interaction between particles and oscillating flows may lead to the formation of particle groups (regions where the particle concentration is increased), yielding a possibility of realizing particle agglomeration.

Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) of NOx through injection of Urea-Water-Solution (UWS) into the hot exhaust gas stream is an effective and extensively used strategy in internal combustion engines. Even though actual SCR systems have 95-96% de-NOx efficiency over test cycles, real driving emissions of NOx are a challenge, proving that there is room for improvement. The efficiency of the NOx conversion is highly dependent on the size of UWS droplets and their spatial distribution. These factors are, in turn, mainly determined by the spray characteristics and its interaction with the exhaust gas flow. The main purpose of this study is to numerically investigate the sensitivity to the modelling framework of the evaporation and mixing of the spray upstream of the catalyst. The dynamics of discrete droplets is handled through the Lagrangian Particle Tracking framework, with models that account for droplet breakup and coalescence, turbulence effects, and water evaporation.

Particulate emissions from internal combustion engines is a well-known issue with direct implications on air quality and human health. Recently there is an increased concern about the high number of ultrafine particles emitted from modern engines. Here we explore a concept for grouping these particles, reducing their total number and shifting the relative size distribution towards fewer larger particles. Particles having a non-zero relaxation time may be manipulated to yield regions of high particle concentration, accommodating agglomeration, when introduced into an oscillating flow field. The oscillating flow field is given by simple periodic geometrical changes of the exhaust pipe itself. It is discussed how the shape of these geometrical changes and also the engine pulses effect the grouping behavior for different size particles, including when Brownian motion becomes relevant.