Abstract
Characteristics of smoke emission in light duty diesel vehicles was investigated according to the year of production, engine displacement volume, and mileage. The smoke emission was measured using light extinction smoke measurement method under free acceleration test mode. Total number of the tested vehicles was 180. The year of production of the tested vehicles distributed from 2002 to 2007. The displacement volumes of the tested vehicles were categorized as 2-liter, 2.5-liter, 2.7-liter, and 3-liter. The mileage of the tested vehicles distributed from 20,000 km to 400,000 km. The more recent in the year of production of the tested vehicles did not show clearly lower in smoke emissions. Smoke emission showed different values according to driver's pedal pushing pattern. Also, smoke emission peak for each free acceleration test initially increased and reach a maximum of the peak values. Afterwards, the smoke peak gradually decreased as number of test increased. A new guide line was proposed to determine the smoke value from the light duty diesel vehicles based on smoke emission peak patterns which were obtained with several repeated free acceleration tests.