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Emission standards as proposed in Europe and the United States for heavy duty diesel engines will require a NOx and particulate reduction of more than 90%. This cannot be achieved by internal engine measures alone. Aftertreatment systems, for either one or both emission components, plus sophisticated electronic control strategies will be required. Various strategies to comply with EU 4, 5 and US 2007 are discussed, also showing their impact on engine performance. For typical 1 and 2 liter per cylinder engines, emission reduction concepts are assessed to identify the most suitable technology for major worldwide markets. The assessment is based on thermodynamic studies, test-bed results and estimates on cost and infrastructure implications.

The introduction of sulphur-free fuels will enable advanced engine and exhaust after-treatment technologies to meet increasingly stringent exhaust emissions regulations. As these cleaner fuels and vehicles are introduced, the potential for further improvements in air quality through changes to fuel properties can be expected to diminish. Nevertheless, CONCAWE has continued to update knowledge by evaluating fuel effects on emissions from new engine/vehicle technologies as they approach the market. In this work, carried out as part of CONCAWE's contribution to the EU “PARTICULATES” consortium [1], two advanced light-duty diesel vehicles and three heavy-duty diesel engines covering Euro-3 to Euro-5 technologies, were tested. The fuels tested covered a range of sulphur content and compared conventional fuels with extreme fuel compositions such as Swedish Class 1 and Fischer Tropsch diesel fuels.

This paper presents an overview of the results on heavy duty engines collected in the “PARTICULATES” project, which aimed at the characterization of exhaust particle emissions from road vehicles. The same exhaust gas sampling and measurement system as employed for the measurements on light duty vehicles [1] was used. Measurements were made in three labs to evaluate a wide range of particulate properties with a range of heavy duty engines and fuels. The measured properties included particle number, with focus separately on nucleation mode and solid particles, particle active surface and total mass. The sample consisted of 10 engines, ranging from Euro-I to prototype Euro-V technologies. The same core diesel fuels were used as in the light duty programme, mainly differentiated with respect to their sulphur content. Additional fuels were tested by some partners to extend the knowledge base.