21ICE-0073
An optimization-based framework for dynamic model
development for a three-way catalytic converter suitable for
urban driving condition
Deepak Mandloi, Himadri Bhushan Das, Samraj Jabez Dhinagar
Copyright © 2021 Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc.
ABSTRACT
The three-way catalytic converter (TWC) is a vital compo-
nent of the S.I. (Spark Ignition) engine to meet the current
emission norms. TWC can perform the three conversion
processes simultaneously. Hence, health diagnosis and
performance monitoring of TWC is a major requirement
of the power-train control system. In TWC modeling, the
chemical species CO, T HC, NOx, O2 , and CO2 are the ma-
jor components of the redox reaction over the wash-coat
surface which impacts the overall conversion efficiency
of the gases. This research work examines a general-
ized chemical model for a fresh catalytic converter vali-
dated for significant engine operating points in an urban
drive cycle. The gas concentration measurements across
the catalyst are harvested from an engine dynamo-meter
test-bed. This work attempts to find the best method to
optimize the chemical kinetic parameter of the Arrhenius
equation parameters. An optimization framework is de-
signed and has been tried on two different optimization
methods to find the global optimal results for the predic-
tion error. The pre-exponential factor and activation en-
ergy parameters for all possible reactions are optimized in
the model using measured data.
INTRODUCTION
A three-way catalyst (TWC) is a well-suited converter for
complete after treatment of S.I. engine exhaust to meet
current regulations. Fast reactions on TWC surface helps
to convert the gases even on higher exhaust mass flow
at higher engine speed [1]. The light-off temperature of
a catalyst depends on material properties of the coat-
ing, distribution of wash-coat over a substrate, structure of
the monolith and the temperature of the flowing gases[2].
Complete conversion is not possible in a cold-start with a
longer exhaust manifold as the exhaust gases lose heat
1
TVS Motor Co Ltd
when it travels long exhaust path. In the latest Bharat
Stage VI / EURO V [3], it is mandatory to place a catalyst
(termed as pre-catalyst) near to exhaust port which con-
verts a significant part of exhaust gases followed by the
bigger catalyst (termed as post-catalyst) for further con-
version. This act caters to the cold-start emission as well.
The structure of the catalyst is focused to achieve the
highest possible interaction of gases with the wash-coat
surface[4]. The design should have a minimal pressure
drop in gas low. The honeycomb structured mesh is
mostly in square or triangular shape. A dual-layer of
wash-coat is also used for the catalyst to increase ther-
mal stability and enhance the conversion efficiency[5].
A pre-catalyst with a signal layer of wash-coat is taken
as a subject of the study in this document of investiga-
tion. The metallurgical analysis of the substrate shows
the major presence of Fe, Cr, Ni and Al (in least) [6][7].
The substrate of the catalyst provides the support to the
wash-coat material in case of a thermal expansion. This
monolith structure together withstands at higher temper-
ature till 9000C − 10000C. The wash-coat material con-
sists largely of O, Al and Ce elements. Aluminum and
cerium are present as solid forms of oxides over the wash-
coat surface such as γ − Al2 O3 and stable cerium ox-
ide CeO2 .[8] Since, the TWC monolith converts the three
harmful gases (CO, HC, and NO) into CO2 ,NO2 and water
vapour thus the chemical kinetics becomes much more
complex. The thermal model of catalyst is equally com-
plex and dynamic due to heat release during the exother-
mic reaction[9][10]. It can be modeled by a time-space
dynamic system [11]. Porous cerium surface stores the
oxygen atoms in the form of oxides (Ce2 O4 and Ce2 O3 )
when the air-fuel ratio (AFR) is lean i.e. excess of oxy-
gen in the exhaust gas other way around it releases the
stored oxygen atoms into redox reaction when the AFR is
rich i.e. excess of mono-oxide. The oxygen carrying ca-
pacity of the cerium surface varies with the temperature of

Figure 1: Framework for catalyst modeling
the wash-coat and it deteriorates with the age of the cat-
alyst [12]. In upcoming OBD-II emission norms, it will be
mandatory to monitor the health of the catalytic converter
using another oxygen sensor placed after the catalyst.
The lambda/oxygen sensor measures the present oxygen
in the exhaust gas mixture, the output signal depends
upon the concentration of CO, NO, and O2 . Since the
lambda sensor signal is a function of oxygen and all other
oxides, the knowledge of conversion efficiency of catalyst
can be extracted by seeing the lambda sensor response
after the catalyst[13]. The difference between oxygen
sensor signals across the catalytic converter quantifies
the OSC (oxygen storage capacity) that defines the age of
the catalyst. The shift in wideband oxygen sensor signal is
a widely used technique for TWC age diagnosis. The shift
in signal is more sensitive to the mass flow rate of exhaust
gas rather than the wash-coat temperature. The literature
says the confidence level of this method is limited to 50%
[14] which leads us towards the need for high fidelity de-
tailed model of the TWC. Other simplified control-oriented
models are developed using vehicle signals such as throt-
tle position, engine speed, manifold air pressure (MAP),
mass airflow (MAF), and AFR ratio [15][16]. Estimation
of oxygen storage level has been done using narrowband
lambda sensor [17] but with a less complex and less accu-
rate model. The detailed chemical model needs the feed
gas compositions which are not possible to measure in ac-
tual driving conditions, but these can be estimated using
the response of the oxygen sensor at a given operating
point [18]. The control-oriented models are being used
to estimate the states which are not measured, the oxy-
gen storage capacity is estimated using measured post
lambda signal [19]. It needs a bulky and expensive setup
for testing and validation of the designed algorithm. The
conversion capacity of the catalyst degrades very slowly
over the time thus the vehicle-based aging of the cata-
lyst is very time-consuming. Vehicle-based catalyst ag-
ing system contains lot of noise and uncertainties in mea-
surements whereas the model-based aging system is less
prone to catch the noise in measured signals. A detailed
high-fidelity mathematical model is very helpful for data-
2
driven algorithm development and parameter tuning of
lower-order control-oriented models. A detailed chemical
model has been already developed and tested for cumu-
lative output of exhaust gas species on FTP drive cycle
[20]. As the emission norms are becoming more stringent
regarding actual driving conditions, the model should be
able to predict the tailpipe emission at any engine operat-
ing point.
In this work, a detailed thermal and chemical model of
the TWC is investigated on a 200 cc(cubic centimeter)
production engine mounted on a dynamo meter-based
testbed. The kinetic gas equation parameters are esti-
mated for the reactions on PGM (Platinum Group Metals)
and Cerium surface. The framework shown in figure(1),
has three verticals, first one covers the analysis of the cat-
alyst material which is done by EDX/XRD methods, sec-
ond is for input/output data collection at different engine
operating points on dynamo-meter based testbed and fi-
nally mathematical modeling in the third vertical. The next
two blocks of the framework is elaborated in this piece
of work. A framework is presented for multi-objective op-
timization for chemical reaction parameters. Two differ-
ent optimization algorithms are employed to globally min-
imize the error between the estimations & measurements
of CO,HC,O2 and CO2 species at different steady-state
engine operating points. The operating points are col-
lected from a production vehicle in urban driving condi-
tions, which covers the significant operating zones of the
S.I. engine. Obtained mathematical model will be used
in various ways for further design of model based state
estimator.The dashed-line enveloped blocks in the frame-
work figure(1) are elaborated and proved in this paper.
The next block shows the road map for further data-driven
and model based design for health diagnosis of catalyst.
It can be employed in DOE (Design of experiment) of data
driven method development for SOX (state of oxygen) and
OSC (oxygen storage capacity) estimation.
MATHEMATICAL MODELLING
The top-level architecture of the model consists of major
models, chemical model lumped with the thermal model
as shown in figure (2). The exhaust gas concentrations
xg , the temperature of the feed gas Tg and MAF are the
inputs to the model, and tailpipe emission (xgout ) is the
output of the model. The internal states SOX and OSC
can be estimated using model-based estimators [21].
The feed exhaust gases flow through the catalyst and in-
teract with the substrate surface. The energy balance
equations govern the heat exchange by convection and
conduction[22]. Chemical reactions take place on the
wash-coat surface which is in thermal contact with the
substrate. The substrate temperature hugely influences
the reaction rates (Ri ), at low temperature, it happens with
a slower conversion rate and vice-versa[23]. As shown
block diagram figure (3), the substrate temperature (Ts )
is supplied to the chemical reaction kinetics block. The
conversion starts over the wash-coat after a certain tem-
perature (light-off). It results in exothermic reactions re-
leasing heat ( Q̇) from each species causing the rise in
the substrate temperature. Further travel of gas causes
the loss in temperature which affects the reaction rate and
the exothermic process. The gas concentration changes
after each small discrete step of the gas-flow path on the
catalyst therefore this catalyst can be modeled in a time-
space varying dynamical system[24][25][26].

Figure 4: Microscopic view of catalyst substrate and

wash-coat.

∂ Ts
( fsb ρsb c psb + fwc ρwc c pwc ) =
∂t
∂ ∂ Ts rxn (1)
fsb (λsb ) − ∑ a j (z)(∆ H) j R j + hS(Tg − Ts )
∂z ∂z j=1

w ∂ Tg
cp = hS(Ts − Tg ) (2)
A g ∂z
Here, Tg , Ts is the temperature of the gas and catalyst
substrate respectively. The density is denoted by ρ and
Figure 2: Top-level architecture of the model λ is the thermal conductivity. Since, the surface reac-
tions follows the Langmuir-Hinshelwood and Eley-Rideal
mechanism, thus the gases react in both solid and gas
phase[27]. Species mass balance in gas phase and cata-
lyst surface can be expressed as:
nrxn
w ∂ xgi
= −kmi S(xgi − xsi ) = ∑ a j (z)R j si, j (3)
A ∂z j=1

Here, w is the molar flow rate of the exhaust and A is

the frontal area of the TWC. The gas concentration in the
gaseous and solid phase is represented by xg and xs , re-
spectively. In equation (3), 0 i0 = CO, HC, NO,CO2 , O2 and
’j’ is the reaction number. The coverage occupied by the
oxygen is a function of the reaction rate of reactions that
takes place on the active site which is a function of the
Figure 3: Thermal-Chemical lumped model of the catalyst feed gas concentration, surface temperature, and avail-
able coverage to react.
dθ
= F(Ts , xs , ) (4)
dt
The TWC in experiment is consists of Fe/Cr/Ni based sub-
strates in a honeycomb structure. A thin layer of active The discussed 1-D model is an IBVP (Initial and Boundary
material is coated over the substrate, (i.e. wash-coat. The Value Problem) and boundary conditions for three dynam-
wash-coat layer is considered to be uniform as the model ically space varying variable are defined as:
is one-dimensional (1-D). Hot gases from exhaust interact
with the substrate channel and transfer the heat to wash- Boundary conditions:
coat by convection and conduction. The heat transfer
transients are considered along the length of the channel. xgi (z = 0,t) = xiin (t)
Axial transients in heat and mass transfer are neglected. Tg (z = 0,t) = Tin (t)
(5)
The energy balance equations are employed in the solid ∂ Ts
and gas phase of the gases: λs b = 0 atz = 0, L
∂z

3
Initial conditions:
Ts (z,t = 0) = Tini (z)
θk (t = 0) = θkini (z)
Oxygen is stored in the form of oxides Ce+2 and Ce+3 , it
changes the state as a result of redox reaction when the
concentrations of O2 and CO change in the exhaust gases.
State of oxygen (SOX) is denoted by θ , also known as
relative oxygen storage. SOX is defined by the ratio of the
oxygen storage component in the higher oxidation state to
the total oxygen storage capacity (OSC).
[CeO2 ]
θ=
([CeO2 ] + 2[Ce2 O3 ])
The list of reactions is mentioned in table (1) below,
oxidation-reduction reactions take place on the PGM sur-
face and oxygen storage activity occurs on cerium active
site.
G = (1 + K1CCO + K2CC3 H8 )2 (1 + K3CCO2 CC3 H 2 )(1 + K4CNO )
8
(10)
(6)
PGM Loading
ASD = × DF (11)
Atomic weight
The cost function is minimized subject to reaction rate
parameters, the vector of optimizers (ν) consist of re-
action kinetic parameters for 11 listed reaction (11- pre-
exponential factors and 11- activation energies) table(1),
named as P1 to P11 and E1 to E11 respectively. Two ac-
tive site parameters are named ASD (active site density)
(7) for cerium and DF (dispersion factor) for PGM. The inhi-
bition function parameters are also calibration parameters
but those have to be optimized only once therefore those
are not kept in vector ν.
ν = [P1, . . . P11, E1, . . . E11, ASD, DF] (12)

Index Reactants Product

Oxidation This parameter vector is fed to the model to produce the
1 CO + 0.5O2 CO2 simulated results and further used for optimization.
2 H2 + 0.5O2 H2 O
3 C3 H8 + 0.5O2 3CO2 +4H2 O EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP
Reduction
4 CO + NO CO2 +0.5N2 The TWC considered for investigation is a part of a pro-
5 H2 + NO H2 O+0.5N2 duction vehicle from TVS Motor Company and is primar-
6 C3 H8 + 10NO 4H2 O + 3CO2 + 0.5N2 ily used for urban commutation. The catalyst has 94
Oxygen Storage cc (cubic centimeter) of total volume and cell density is
7 H2 + 2CeO2 H2 O+Ce2 O3 200 CPSI (cells per square inch). The catalyst sample
8 CO + 2CeO2 CO2 +Ce2 O3 is taken under the microscopic analysis, the thickness of
9 0.5O2 +CeO2 O3 2CeO2 substrate and wash-coat is 130 and 140 microns respec-
10 1
C H + 2CeO Ce 3 2
2 O3 + 10 CO2 + 5 H2 O tively figure(4). The catalyst is fitted into the exhaust of the
10 3 8 2
11 CeO2 O3 + NO 2CeO2 + 0.5N2 S.I. engine placed on the engine dynamometer testbed.
Table:1 List of the reactions The testbed is capable of operating the engine at de-
The reaction rate for the surface reactions consists of con- sired operating points (throttle position %, engine speed).
centrations of the reactants ({conc.}), inhibition function The measurements are obtained at steady-state operat-
(G(i)), the available coverage(θ (i)) and the rate constant ing points for the model parameter estimation and valida-
(k)[20]. The rate constant is defined by Arrehinus equation tion. The engine runs through the different combinations
(9) which is an exponential function of activation energy of the throttle position(%) and engine speed (rpm) which
(Ea ) and substrate temperature (Ts ). The pre-exponential is termed as an operating point of the engine. In the ur-
factor is denoted by k j where ’j’ is the reaction number. ban drive cycle of the vehicle, the operating point of the
The inhibition function selectively decreases the rate of engine changes very transiently. An urban drive cycle
reaction. Equation (10) follows the standard form of inhi- data points are collected and distributed in the space of
bition function which consists of participant of the reaction throttle position and the normalized value of engine speed
and there weights(K1 , K2 , K3 , K4 ) are calibration parame- shown in figure(5). The color density is proportional to the
ters. The catalyst wash-coat has the active metals but frequency of the operating point. Red-colored points are
only some area of wash-coat is active to accommodate chosen as test points to set on the testbed for model vali-
the reaction, it is termed as θk , for k= PGM, Cerium sites. dation. Temperature sensors are fitted across the catalyst
It is defined by active site density (ASD) (mol/m3 ), since in the testbed which logs the temperature of gases be-
the PGM material loading is known in subject TWC so we fore and after conversion in the catalyst. A portable gas
can use dispersion factor (DF) to quantify the activity of analyzer is used to measure the gas concentrations at a
PGM site shown in equation (11). steady-state operating point. The gas analyser is limited
to measure few of major gas species CO, HC (n-propane),
R = k.{conc}.G(i).θk (8) CO2 , NO and O2 . Hence the reactions pertaining to these
species are considered in the model. The degree of cor-
where −Ea
rectness is poor in the measure of NO gas by this instru-
k = k j .e RTs (9) ment.

4
 where, wi is the weight of the ith species. In chemical
kinetics, total 11 reactions are taken into account to sim-
ulate the function of catalytic converter. Each reaction is
subject to two reaction parameters, pre-exponential factor
(Pi ) and activation energy (Ei ). Hence, there will be 22
parameters to estimate. Moreover, active site density of
(ASD) of cerium and dispersion factor (DF) for PGM ac-
tive site need to be considered in the optimization. The
complete parameter vector (ν) has total 24 parameters to
be optimized, shown in equation (12).

Literature says[20] that the activation energy will be con-

stant for any particular reaction, the base values (initial
values for optimization) of (Ei ) is taken from the literature
for further calibration and optimization. The main objec-
tive of the optimization framework is to determine the pre-
exponential factor and material property parameters (ASD,
Figure 5: Data points of engine operating points in vehicle DF). The material properties degrade due to aging, hence
ASD and DF have to be re-estimated for the considerable
aged catalytic converter. The reaction parameters A and
OBJECTIVE FUNCTION AND PARAMETER OPTIMIZA-
E are optimized only once in a modeling process. The pa-
TION
rameters A and E will be the same for the aged catalyst
model, only ASD and DF will change as the mileage of the
The mathematical model produces the simulated catalyst increases.
concentrations of gases after conversion, de-
noted by (COsim , HCsim , O2sim ,CO2sim and NOsim ) and
OPTIMIZATION ROUTINE
the measured compositions are represented by
(COmeas , HCmeas , O2meas ,CO2meas and NOmeas ). Since
The oxidation, reduction and oxygen storage reactions
the model is not focusing on light-off conditions thus the
take place simultaneously on TWC surface. The reactions
effect of the temperature on cost function is considered
are coupled to more than one chemical species, hence it
minimal. In such modeling problems, the cumulative
will be irrelevant to optimize each reaction independently.
error can be considered but that will be applicable for
The set of reactions that consists of one type of reactants
drive cycle-based test cases. In this work, the measure-
can be clubbed in a group and optimize simultaneously.
ments of the exhaust gas compositions are considered
This process can not guarantee global optimal results for
in steady-state engine operating points. Hence, the
all the reactions together, however, this process can pro-
error is calculated at the final instant of the simulation.
vide a range of parameters those are involved in reac-
In the simulation, one steady-state point is maintained
tions. Two types of optimal results are possible in any
for 500 second time step and the instantaneous error
optimization, global optimal which would be appreciated
is calculated at 500th second. An individual error of
for all the operating points in this model and another is
each species is defined by the normalized difference of
the local optimal which may provide the best results for
measured and simulated concentration. Normalization
any particular operating point. Since the chemical behav-
is essential to nullify the effect of a unit of any species
ior of the catalyst is very non-linear thus the local mini-
in the mixture and it is conducted as shown in equation
mum solutions may fail in random operating point valida-
(13). The amount CO2 , CO, and O2 is measured in
tion. Gradient-based methods are used for local optimiza-
percentage but the total hydrocarbon is measured in ppm
tion, it takes a smaller number of iterations to converse
(parts per million) therefore the normalized error in each
the cost function [28]. Heuristic search algorithms are
species is considered as individual species cost function.
very prominent for global optimization, the speed of con-
These individual errors are wisely chosen in cost function
vergence in these methods depends upon the number of
because putting a wrong contribution in cost function
parameters to optimize. Larger the number optimization
can lead the optimization towards incorrect estimations.
parameters, slower the convergence speed. Optimization
The overall cost function is made of the weighted sum of
started from appropriate initial values converges faster. In
individual species error.
the proposed optimization problem, the number of param-
abs(xi meas − xi sim ) eters are very high, simultaneous optimization of all the
Ei = 100 (13) parameters may lead the cost function to a local optimal
xi meas
or wrong estimation. The optimization problem is frag-
where i = CO, HC, CO2 , O2 and NO. mented into different stages to get a close idea about the
range of the parameters and sensitivity of a particular pa-
The cost function is defined as in equation (14). rameter. The optimization routine is described by the flow
chart in figure (6).
f = wi .Ei (14)

5
 also employed and compared with genetic algorithm. The
downhill optimization depends upon the initial values, the
method decreases/increases the parameters by a step in
an organized manner and tries new designs. The cost
function is evaluated and the new parameters are sup-
plied to the model with a step change. The speed and ac-
curacy of convergence are highly dependent on the size
of the step also known as % resolution. The convergence
speed for both the algorithm is shown and compared in
figure(7). The cost function is minimized using genetic
Figure 6: Framework used for optimization of prediction algorithm and simplex downhill method, the convergence
error for different engine operating points. plot for pre-exponential factor is shown in figure(8) and
figure(9), respectively. Fast hydrocarbons and water-gas
shift reactions are not in the scope of this model, therefore
1. The model is initialized with the base values of pa- the parameters P6 is not completely settled in optimiza-
rameters taken from the literature and prior art [20] tion.
that follows the standard framework for the chemical
reaction kinetics.
2. The individual species error is taken as a cost func-
tion and related reaction parameters, ASD and DF are
taken as optimization variables.
3. The normalized error in model prediction of CO is
taken as cost function, CO participates in reaction
number 1,4 and 8 mentioned in the table (1), so the
parameter P1, P4, and P8 (pre-exponential factors)
and related activation energies along with ASD and
DF are optimized independently for all 20 operating
points.
4. Previously optimized parameters are kept into the
model and all other gas species are also optimized,
similarly. As a result, all the gas species conversed to
minimal error having 20 sets of reactions parameters
and active material parameters.
5. The reactions are coupled with each other; thus the Figure 7: Cost function convergence by GA and simplex
cost function is also coupled by taking the sum of downhill method
two individual species errors. CO and HC are con-
sidered together and related parameters of reactions
1,3,4,6,8 and 10 will be the optimizers.
6. Mean values of all the 20 sets become the initial val-
ues for the next round of optimization, in this round
the cost function consists of the sum of all errors with
equal weightage. The upper and lower bound of the
parameters is taken as 10% of the mean value across
the mean value.
7. At the end of the optimization process, all of the 24
parameters (11 pre-exponential factors, 11- activa-
tion energy, ASD, and DF) are determined, which
completes a generalized chemical model of TWC
having a minimal prediction error at any operating
point of the engine.

In this work, two different optimization methods are em-

ployed to compare and get the best global optimal results.
The genetic algorithm (GA) is a heuristic search method, it
takes a long time to optimize the cost function because it Figure 8: Convergence of pre-exponential factor by ge-
searches in a wide space. The downhill simplex method is netic algorithm

6
 tration and it makes the average error larger. Conversion
of total hydrocarbon (T HC) by the model has been per-
formed very well shown in figure (12). The average error
is 19.23%, and the prediction error at individual operating
point is lesser than 10% except few cases as shown in fig-
ure (13). The prediction of O2 is quite well throughout the
all-operating points, it is lesser than 15% and the average
error is 11.88% figure (14). The product of almost all the
reactions is CO2 , the presence of CO2 after the conversion
varies from 12 − 14%. The error in model prediction is un-
der 3% for this species, figure (15). The normalized error
is calculated by:

abs(xmeas − xsim )
Normalizederror = × 100% (15)
xmeas
Figure 9: Convergence of pre-exponential factor by sim-
plex downhill method
Measured value is there in denominator of error expres-
sion so that at lower concentration points the small error
EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS in absolute value can be projected higher normalized er-
ror. The absolute values of average error in each species
The experiment is designed to mainly focus on the chem- are presented in table(2). It is almost same for both the
ical conversion reactions. The temperature model is also optimization methods and significantly less in numbers.
taken into account and few convection parameters are op-
timized to get the model to predict the temperature at the
outlet of the catalytic converter. Figure (10) shows the
measured and model-simulated temperature after the cat-
alytic converter. The thermal model gives the average er-
ror of 1.85% and maximum 4% error in the prediction of
the temperature.

Figure 11: Measured and simulation results of CO

Figure 10: Exhaust gas temperature after catalytic con-

verter

The experimental setup provides the steady-state data of

gas concentrations, inlet and outlet temperature. The ex-
haust mass flow rate is estimated using engine operating
points. A generalized model has calibrated for the best
prediction results for the widely spread engine operating
points. Figure (11) shows the behavior of the model for
CO prediction. It is compared to the measured values of
CO concentration in mole fraction. Although the model
gives prediction error under 10% at many operating points
the average error in all operating points is 26.78%, be-
cause the model performance is poor for lower concen- Figure 12: Measured and simulation results of HC

7

Figure 13: Individual normalized error in exhaust gas
species.
Figure 14: Measured and simulation results of O2
Figure 15: Measured and simulation results of CO2
Comparison of two optimization methods is presented in
figure(16). The downhill method performs poorer than the
genetic algorithm if it is not started from a suitable initial
point. The local optimization downhill method might stuck
in the local minimum point that causes the stagnation in
the cost function, in turn, the algorithm will not try the next
step of design in optimization and declare the present de-
sign as minimal cost design.
8
Average absolute error Average normalized error
GA Downhill GA Downhill
CO(%) 0.25 0.27 CO(%) 26.78 29.15
HC(ppm) 16.34 16.49 HC(%) 19.23 18.99
O2 (%) 0.05 0.06 O2 (%) 11.18 11.22
CO2 (%) 0.30 0.30 CO2 (%) 2.35 2.33
AFR(%) 0.01 0.01 AFR(%) 1.02 1.02
Table:2 Average of normalized and absolute error at
operating points
Figure 16: Average error in exhaust gas species for GA
and Downhill method.
In the presented work, the genetic algorithm (GA) is opti-
mizing better for prediction error in CO, in other species
also, GA performed better out of the two optimization
methods but it took more iterations to converse. GA
method took 18-20 hours for simultaneous optimization of
13 parameters (11- pre-exponential factor and 2-material
parameter) and 20 cases of the operating point at the
same time. On the other hand, the simplex downhill
method performs the same in 6-8 hours. The initial val-
ues of reaction parameters are obtained empirically and
started the optimization. The solution of simplex downhill
method is highly dependent on initial values.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
The need for catalyst diagnosis is changing as the emis-
sions norms are getting more stringent. In OBD − II,
health diagnosis of the exhaust elements (TWC, lambda
sensor etc.) is mandatory and the instantaneous tailpipe
emission may require the diagnosis of immeasurable
states of catalyst. The high-fidelity chemical model of
catalyst is very much important which can predict the
tailpipe emission at any dynamic engine operating point.
The main focus of this work is to prepare an optimiza-
tion framework which can provide a detailed chemical and
thermal model for TWC. Although, the chemical kinetics of
TWC is very complex and difficult to determine in highly
changeable engine emission, the model is generalized for
different steady-state engine operating points. The model
is capable to predict the tailpipe emission for different op-
erating conditions for the S.I. engine with a good degree
of accuracy. An optimization framework is proposed to
calibrate the reaction parameters at any static operating
engine operating point. Model-based development is the
most widely used method for control development and val-
idation. Test bed-based testing and validation method are
very expensive and time-consuming, other than that a lot
of uncertainties and sources of errors are co-related with
the physical system. This detailed model can be used to
test and validate the control algorithms. The proposed
model has the potential to replace the dynamo meter-
based hardware system with a mathematical model. This
work can be the gateway for other control and diagno-
sis algorithm development. In the presented model, the
TWC is in fresh condition, it can be further aged for dif-
ferent mileages and calibrate the model again using mea-
sured data. The material properties will be degrading due
to aging and the reaction kinetics can be kept the same.
This detailed generalized model can be used to generate
the data for data-driven method development for catalyst
age/health diagnosis. In another aspect of future work,
the complexity of the model can be reduced and bring it
till a control-oriented model. An internal state estimation
algorithm can be developed and tested over it. The inter-
nal states OSC and SOX will reflect clear knowledge about
oxygen carrying capacities and functioning of the catalyst.

9

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