Soot accumulation and combustion in porous media

Abstract

Although diesel engines have an advantage of low fuel consumption compared with gasoline engines, several problems must be solved. One of the major concerns is that diesel exhaust gas has more particulate matters (PM) including soot, which are suspected to be linked to human carcinogen. As one of the key technologies, a diesel particulate filter (DPF) has been developed to reduce PM in the post-treatment of exhaust gas. In this study, the authors simulate soot accumulation and combustion in simplified porous media by the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). Results show that the flow pattern is largely changed when the soot is accumulated. In combustion simulation, the reaction is well simulated to observe the reduction of accumulated soot with increasing temperature near the porous wall. The authors' approach can be used to capture the dynamics of soot behaviours in porous media flow for a better design of DPF.