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Soot filtration represents a major problem for the complete exploiting of Diesel engines characteristics in terms of global efficiency and CO2 emissions. Even though the engines development in the last years let the engine performances improve, exhaust gas after treatment is still required to respect the foreseen limits for soot and NOx emissions. A flow-through particle trap has been presented with a great potential in soot removal without major penalties in terms of exhaust back pressure. The device performance is strictly connected to channel geometry. This paper deals with that relation by means of an experimental-numerical approach.

Metal based Diesel Particulate Filters (PM-TRAPs) could represent a short time solution to face with particulate (and NOx) emissions with a small influence on CO2 emission. In fact, the operation principle of the PM-TRAP, based on fluid dynamical behavior of exhaust flow in “ad hoc” shaped geometries, allows to separate the particle content of exhaust-gases but needs to be carefully assessed to optimize filter performances. In this paper a mixed numerical and experimental procedure has been developed; it allows to finely tune the design parameters which can be used to achieve pre-defined targets in terms of particulate matter and fuel consumption. By adopting the previously declared procedure, a PM-TRAP “optimal” geometry has been chosen. Its performance has been verified with respect to experimental data. Results are encouraging and suggest further development of the system.