MATHEMATICAL-MODELING OF ELECTRICALLY HEATED MONOLITH CONVERTERS - MODEL FORMULATION, NUMERICAL-METHODS, AND EXPERIMENTAL-VERIFICATION

The previously-developed transient monolith model has been extended to describe the thermal response and conversion performance of an electrically heated monolith converter during warmup. This paper documents the necessary modifications in the model formulation and in the numerical solution methods to accommodate the more severe operating conditions encountered in heated converters. The validity of the heated converter model was tested by comparing model predictions with vehicle emission test data. Model predictions of converter-bed temperatures and converter-out mass emissions agree well with those measured during the cold-start portion of the vehicle emission tests, thus demonstrating the validity of the heated converter model developed here.