internal combustion engine." A
Tier 3 internal combustion engine,
that is.
"After treatment and thermal
management is where we are
going to add value to the vehicle
manufacturers," says Ben Patel,
Tenneco vp, Emissions Control,
Global Research & Development
and Systems Integration.
Tenneco, which had $8-billion in
2013 revenue, of which 68% (or
$5.5-billion) was accounted for by
its Clean Air Div., is, not surprisingly,
focused on developing technolo-
gies that can help vehicle manu-
facturers address these and other
regulations. Among the develop-
ments that they have created is
a fabricated exhaust manifold
rather than cast, in order to both
reduce weight while maintaining
temperature (helpful for getting
the catalyst up to temperature
faster); they're also moving the
catalyst closer to the engine.
They are also working with
Gentherm ( gentherm.com ) on a
waste-heat recovery system that
is used to generate electricity
via a thermoelectric generator:
essentially, it is a heat exchanger
that has thermoelectric material
sandwiched within cylindrically
shaped cartridges. When the
cartridges are exposed to hot
exhaust gas on one side and
engine coolant on the other,
then the consequent temperature
gradient results in an electrical
current fow. This electricity can
then be used to power on-board
systems.
It almost seems as if there are
few things that they aren't
working on for light-vehicle
powertrains, be they conventional
gasoline engines (catalytic
converter systems; close-coupled
converters; ultra-thin substrate
converters; semi-active mufer
valve technology; fabricated
manifolds; lightweight mufers
and thin-wall pipes; active
and passive valves; thermo-
electric generator), gasoline
direct-injected engines (add
gasoline particulate flters, heat
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