Diesel with Afterburner

[philip]

I attended the recent International Truck Show in Los Angeles

These photos are of the newest 15 liter Caterpillar diesel. ALL THIS STUFF (turbos, liquid cooled EGR, air2air intercooler, exhaust afterburner, and soot coolector are all for ... smog.

And you think cars are complex.

[Carimbo]

Looks like a sparkplug in the last pic.

[philip]

Looks like a sparkplug in the last pic.

Cuz it is! The Clean Gas Injection system has computer supervision. At ideal times for "passive cleaning" a small amount of diesel fuel is admitted into the afterburner, spark plug is operated to maintain flame, so that the soot trap downstream is "desooted" by the flame. Obviously OTR trucks pulling grades will "passively clean" quite often while local trash truck operation will seldom get the "passive cleaning" so .... at some threshold of back pressure differential, a CLEAN ME light on the dash comes ON. Head for the shop for a physical washing / exhange of the soot trap. Figure a couple hours of downtime and $500 minimum.

The upside to all this is recirculated exhaust gases are sourced AFTER the the afterburner, cooled, and then routed back to the air intake. The 'plus' is there are no abrasive particles in this exhaust ... unlike EGR found on all other EGR systems on earlier diesels and gasoline engines.