13th July 2009

Diesel Engine Emissions Monitoring

Product Range: SQ2040

The Background: Thermo King is researching alternative diesel fuel mixtures to increase the utilistion of clean burning fuels in their refrigeration diesel units.

Application: To provide real life feedback on performance monitoring in refrigeration diesel engines.

The Problem: They need to provide test results which are applicable to the California Air Resources Board's (CARB) new legislation which regulates particulate matter (PM) emmissions from the vehicle's exhaust. These tests are designed to document the field test conditions during normal customer operations while running various diesel fuel mixtures.

The Squirrel Solution: The Grant Instruments Squirrel SQ2040 was supplied by Computer Aided Solution to Thermo King as part of a small portable data acquisition system for several Thermo King Refrigeration diesel engine units.

The Squirrel is being used to monitor various engine parameters such as exhaust gas temperature, coolant temperature, system voltages and unit pressures to correlate actual "real-life" enviromental conditions and overall system performance over a 1 year period.

The SQ2040 provides validation of the field testing conditions while reduced diesel PM emissions is being achieved, at the required specifications without having an impact on the operation or the efficiency of the diesel engine.

The Benefits: Thermo King has received Level2 Plus (greater than or equal to 50% reductions of diesel emissions) verification as part of the California Showcase emissions reduction initiative.