IAV in collaboration with Cummins performed real-time on-road oil consumption measurements with a Lubrisense. Published at the 5th international Motoren Kongress, February 2018.
Title: „Real-time on-road oil consumption measurements for a commercial heavy-duty Diesel engine“
Authors: Tom George, Co-author: Volker Schille, both IAV GmbH, Thomas McKinley Ph.D., Co-author: Trenton Berardi, both Cummins Inc., USA
Abstract: „Oil consumption rate is a critically important parameter for modern commercial Diesel engines which commonly use cooled EGR and exhaust aftertreatment for emissions control. Specifically, it is related to several failure modes such as EGR cooler fouling, EGR valve sticking, Diesel oxidation catalyst poisoning and Diesel particulate filter ash loading. In addition, a low oil consumption leads to longer service intervals and a higher uptime of the vehicle.
In response, oil consumption rate measurement technology has dramatically improved. With mass spectrometry, it is now possible to measure oil emission (and thereby oil consumption) with an accuracy of 1 to 2 grams per hour and response times shorter than one second.
While these methods have been applied during dynamometer testing, that is only an approximation of real-world operation, which includes factors such as ambient pressure and temperature variation, angularity and g-loading. In-situ, on-road oil consumption measurement capability would be an important step forward, analogous to development of portable emissions measurement equipment that has revealed a new understanding of real-world emissions under real-world driving cycles and operating conditions.
To that end, this presentation presents on-road application of mass spectrometry to measure transient oil consumption in a heavy-duty truck. Approaches to address instru- mentation application and calibration are described, along with test measurements over a range of urban and intra-city highway driving conditions.“