Recent legislation enacted for the European Union (EU) and the United States calls for a substantial reduction in particulate mass (and number in the EU) emissions from gasoline spark-ignited vehicles. The most prominent technology being evaluated to reduce particulate emissions from a gasoline vehicle is a wall flow filter known as a gasoline particulate filter (GPF). Similar in nature to a diesel particulate filter (DPF), the GPF will trap and store particulate emissions from the engine, and oxidize said particulate with frequent regeneration events. The GPF will also collect ash particles in the wall flow substrate, which are metallic components that cannot be oxidized into gaseous components. Due to high temperature operation and frequent regeneration of the GPF, the impact of ash on the GPF has the potential to be substantially different from the impact of ash on the DPF. Therefore, traditional accelerated ash loading methods used for DPFs may not be applicable to the GPF technology. This paper summarizes three accelerated ash loading strategies that were evaluated and compared to a field generated component to understand the applicability of the accelerated methods. CT Scan imaging was used to compare each ash loading technique relative to a field generated GPF.
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