Identification and Quantification of Uncertainty Components in Gaseous and Particle Emission Measurements of a Moped

Abstract

The recent Euro 4 and 5 environmental steps for L-category vehicles (e.g., mopeds, motorcycles) were mainly designed to reduce the emissions of particulate matter and ozone precursors, such as nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons. However, the corresponding engine, combustion, and aftertreatment improvements will not necessarily reduce the solid particle number (SPN) emissions, suggesting that a SPN regulation may be necessary in the future. At the same time, there are concerns whether the current SPN regulations of passenger cars can be transferred to L-category vehicles. In this study we quantified the errors and uncertainties in emission measurements, focusing on SPN. We summarized the sources of uncertainty related to emission measurements and experimentally quantified the contribution of each uncertainty component to the final results. For this reason, gas analyzers and SPN instruments with lower cut-off sizes of 4 nm, 10 nm, and 23 nm were sampling both from the tailpipe, and from the dilution tunnel having the transfer tube in closed or open configuration (i.e., open at the tailpipe side). The results showed that extracting from the tailpipe 23–28% of the mean total exhaust flow (bleed off) resulted in a 24–31% (for CO2) and 19–73% (for SPN) underestimation of the emissions measured at the dilution tunnel. Erroneous determination of the exhaust flow rate, especially at cold start, resulted in 2% (for CO2) and 69–149% (for SPN) underestimation of the tailpipe emissions. Additionally, for SPN, particle losses in the transfer tube with the closed configuration decreased the SPN concentrations around 30%, mainly due to agglomeration at cold start. The main conclusion of this study is that the open configuration (or mixing tee) without any instruments measuring from the tailpipe is associated with better accuracy for mopeds, especially related to SPN measurements. In addition, we demonstrated that for this moped the particle emissions below 23 nm, the lower size currently prescribed in the passenger cars regulation, were as high as those above 23 nm; thus, a lower cut-off size is more appropriate.