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This work attempts a systematic investigation of the effects of flow maldistribution on the light-off behavior of a monolithic catalytic converter. To achieve this goal, a combined chemical reaction model and three-dimensional computational fluid dynamic modeling technique has been developed. The computational results reveal that the influence of area ratio was significant during high flow transient conditions. The cross-sectional area ratio with the smaller value increases the thermal gradient due to flow maldistribution in the monolith, which degrades performance of catalytic converter. Due to locally concentrated high velocities, large portions of the monolith remain cold and CO,HC are unconverted during warm up period. Therefore, flow maldistribution can cause a significant retardation of the light-off and can eventually worsen the conversion efficiency.

Mathematical modeling of three-way catalytic converter (3WCC) operation is used increasingly in the optimization of automobile converter systems. But almost all of previous computational models were based on "adiabatic one- channel" approach with the reaction kinetics computations, which is useful and efficient in predicting real-world performance of the catalyst. However, as long as flow maldistribution is not accounted for in the models, simulation results will not be reliable. In this work, two-dimensional performance prediction of catalyst coupled with turbulent reacting flow simulation has been performed and the results were compared with experimental data and one-channel simulation in the literature. The computational results from this study show the better prediction accuracy in terms of CO, HC and NO conversion efficiencies compared to those of 1-D adiabatic model. Varying cell density and hot spot moving pattern within the monolith during warm-up period are also considered.