West Virginia University
engine emission experts are in California
helping part of one of America's largest grocery
store chains convert its delivery trucks into
greener energy consumers.
Ralphs Supermarkets, a California centered
division of The Kroger Co., wanted to pursue a
greener
energy footprint by using cleaner fuels and
engines to power an extensive fleet of delivery
vehicles that dot the highways from Los Angeles’
freeways to the country roads of the California
mountains.
The company is currently transitioning half of
its truck fleet to less polluting CNG. Ralphs
leadership looked to WVU’s Center for
Alternative Fuels, Engines and Emissions to
help turn those green plans into green
reality.
“Ralphs has been a great research partner for
many years,”
Dan Carder, CAFEE director said. “The
company’s commitment to improving fuel economy
among its fleet of vehicles is unparalleled –
and its generous lending of its Riverside
distribution center, an ideal location for our
type of research, helps our engineers and
scientists tremendously.”
The CAFEE experts were in the neighborhood
anyway.
With a cross-country
road trip from Morgantown to Riverside, CA
– and having become the first university-based
research team to measure heavy-duty emissions
compliance for 2,500 consecutive miles – CAFEE
scientists were anxious to tackle the Ralph’s
Grocery challenge and put some of the results of
their trans-continental experiments to good
use.
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“The cross-country trip generated valuable
real-time emissions data over a wide range of
operating conditions, from flat roads in the
Midwest through the high altitudes of the Rocky
Mountains, including 11,000 feet at Loveland
Pass,” said Arvind Thiruvengadam, a Ph.D.
candidate in charge of data collection on the
trip.
“It was great to see how our mobile laboratory
systems reacted to different atmospheric
pressures at different elevations,” said
Thiruvengadam. “The primary objective was to
study the effect of road grade on emissions from
advanced heavy-duty diesel engines, but we took
the opportunity to collect as much seed data as
possible for various other possible research
endeavors.”
The five-day research trip included a stop at
the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in
Denver. It was sponsored by the South Coast
California Air Quality Management District, the
California Air Resources Board, the U.S.
Department of Energy, and the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency.
Once in California, CAFEE scientists set up shop
at Ralphs massive distribution center in
Riverside and established a staging ground for
CAFEE’s mobile
emissions laboratory.
While at the Ralphs facility, WVU scientists are
chassis-testing heavy-duty vehicles to ensure
the engines are compliant with emissions
regulations by collecting and examining
emissions data from diesel, CNG and dual-fuel
engines.
WVU is nationally-known for its engine mission
expertise because it is home not only to a
highly trained cadre of experts, but also the
only mobile heavy-duty chassis dynamometer in
the U.S., which allows it to visit sites where
vehicles are being used in real-world
situations.
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In the event that non-compliance is identified,
CAFEE works with engine, vehicle and exhaust
after treatment systems manufacturers to design
and fabricate retrofit solutions to meet
compliance. That means peace of mind for Ralphs
if its growing fleet of green vehicles passes
the WVU tests and a growing collection of
important engine emissions data for future
conversions at sites across America.
“With a huge thrust in natural gas vehicles in
California, the current project will provide an
excellent comparison of the benefits of advanced
natural gas vehicles over older model year
diesel vehicles,” said Thiruvengadam. “The
comparative emissions data will help enable
fleets such as Ralphs to have a better knowledge
of the real-world emissions of the various
heavy-duty vehicles.”
Results will be shared with both the California
Air Resource Board and South Coast Air Quality
Management District, which will provide a better
understanding of the effectiveness of current
regulations.