Search Results

During the fall of 1992, the Michigan Roadside Study was conducted. During this study IM240 tests were conducted on vehicles that had also been emissions tested during on-road operation via two remote sensors that were separated by 100 feet. The use of two remote sensors provided an indication of the short-term real-world emissions variability of a large number of on-road vehicles. This data was used to determine the frequency of flippers, i.e. vehicles that are sometimes high emitters (>4% CO) and at other times low emitters (<2% CO). The data show that the flipper frequency increases for older model year vehicles. Also, the correlations between remote sensor readings of emissions concentrations and IM240 mass emissions rates were determined. The data show that the correlation between remote sensing and IM240 improves with increasing numbers of remote sensing readings. For three remote sensor readings, CO correlates with an r2 of 0.69 and HC correlates with an r2 of 0.54

Four vehicle fleets, consisting of 3 to 4 vehicles each, were emission tested on a 48″ roll chassis dynamometer using both the FTP urban dynamometer driving cycle and the REP05 driving cycle. The REP05 cycle was developed to test vehicles under high speed and high load conditions not included in the FTP. The vehicle fleets consisted of 1989 light-duty gasoline vehicles, 1992-93 limited production FFV/VFV methanol vehicles, 1992-93 compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles and their gasoline counterparts, and a 1992 production and two prototype ethanol FFV/VFV vehicles. All vehicles (except the dedicated CNG vehicles) were tested using Auto/Oil AQIRP fuels A and C2. Other fuels used were M85 blended from A and C2, E85 blended from C1, which is similar to C2 but without MTBE, and four CNG fuels representing the range of in-use CNG fuels. In addition to bag measurements, tailpipe exhaust concentration and A/F data were collected once per second throughout every test.