Use of Vision-Based Methods for Measurement of Mechanical Properties of Exhaust Catalysts

Abstract

Diesel engine exhaust catalyst material properties play an important part in predicting the durability of aftertreatment systems. In particular, the elastic modulus is critical to the catalyst design. Direct measurement of catalyst stiffness is difficult due to the low deformations and high stiffness that the catalyst samples experiences before failure. For this paper, catalyst stiffness is measured using two vision-based methods – Digital Image Correlation and a point tracking method developed in LabVIEW. Results of the testing show good correlation of the two methods. Additionally, the testing identified contributions of the loadframe compliance that affected results of previous test methods.