A simplified catalytic converter model for automotive coldstart control applications

More than three-fourths of the unburned hydrocarbon (HC) emissions in a typical drive cycle of an automotive engine are produced in the initial 2 minutes of operation, commonly known as the coldstart period. Catalyst light-off plays a very important role in reducing these emissions. Model-based paradigm is used to develop a control-oriented, thermodynamics based simple catalyst model for coldstart purposes. It is a modified version of an available model consisting of thermal dynamics and static efficiency maps, the critical modification being in the thermal submodel. Oxygen storage phenomenon does not play a significant role during the warm-up of the engine. The catalyst is modeled as a second-order system consisting of catalyst brick temperature and temperature of the feedgas flowing through the catalyst as its states. Energy balance of an unsteady flow through a control volume is used to model the feedgas temperature, whereas energy balance of a closed system is used to model the catalyst brick temperature. Wiebe profiles are adopted to empirically model the HC emissions conversion properties of the catalyst as a function of the catalyst temperature and the air-fuel ratio. The static efficiency maps are further extended to include the effects of spatial velocity of the feedgas. Experimental results indicate good agreement with the model estimates for the catalyst warm-up. It is shown that the model represents the system more accurately as compared to the previous model on which it is based and offers a broader scope for analysis.