A New Semi-Empirical Temperature Model for the Three Way Catalytic Converter

This paper proposes a semi-empirical model to predict the temperature of the three-way catalytic converter. The model is derived from the partial differential equations describing the energy balance in the catalyst and it is simplified by lumping the heat produced by the exothermic reactions occurring in the catalyst into a single parameter. This simplification allows the model to be run real time in production vehicles, since no information about the concentration of the chemical species in the exhaust gas is requested as input to the model. The parameters are identified using a particle swarm optimization algorithm. It is shown that the model accurately predicts the system behavior.