A STUDY ON A CATALYTIC CONVERTER OBD BEFORE LIGHT-OFF

Increasingly stringent emission regulations of EU and CARB (California Air resource Board) require mandatory OBD (On Board Diagnostics) far the catalytic converters of a vehicle. It demands that MIL(Malfunction Indication Light) should be tuned on to inform the driver of catalytic converter failures. Currently dual oxygen sensor method Is widely used for the converter OBD. However, since it works only alter converter light-off, it has a serious limitation when applied to TLEV or more stringent emission regulations where more than 85% of total emission is coming out before converter light-off. In addition, a recent development in catalyst material. coating technology and additive catalysts leads to a much improved OSC (Oxygen Storage Capacity) after converter light-off, current methods are very difficult to determine levels of converter aging. Therefore, it is desired to develop an OSC detecting method before converter light-off to diagnose converter failures with higher reliability. In this study, OSCs of converters are measured by an absolute measuring method and a dynamic measuring method, and some of fundamental ideas are suggested about converter OBD before converter light-off. The converters are aged with two different aging methods; those are a furnace aging and an engine bench aging: to represent aging conditions in actual field applications. Dual oxygen sensor method at the lower temperature than light-off is also studied at a model gas bench with the converters. It is fecund that there is a certain point in temperature lower than light-off where difference due to aging level becomes maximum, thus a proper dynamic method to effectively monitor catalytic converters could be implemented fur the range lower than light-off temperatures. With this result, the aging level of converters is examined at an engine bench.