I NDUSTRY NEWS
Any resemblance between Cummins’ 2010 ISX engine and
the 2007 engine shown here is strictly intentional, as the
company announced that its 2010 engines will meet the
EPA’s heavy-duty on-highway emissions standards without
the addition of NOx aftertreatment, specifically selective catalytic
reduction (SCR).
DOWN A FAMILIAR
ROAD FOR 2010
Cummins’ no-SCR strategy for 2010 heavy-duty engines based mostly on
evolution of existing technologies; SCR tabbed for midrange applications
BY MIKE BREZONICK
If there is one word that describes
Cummins’ approach to engine development, it would probably be
“consistent.” And nowhere has that
consistency been more apparent than
in the case of the Columbus, Ind.,
company’s heavy-duty on-highway
engine products.
As far back as 2001, Cummins
established a strategy founded primarily on a series of bedrock technologies — cooled exhaust gas recirculation (EGR), high-pressure fuel injection and advanced air handling — that
carried it over the 2002/2004 EPA
emissions hurdles. When EPA standards took another leap in 2007,
Cummins’ response was based on
essentially the same fundamental
technologies, with some tweaks and
the addition of aftertreatment.
Yet the EPA’s 2010 standards, which
require yet another significant emissions reduction, was an entirely different situation. It was accepted by most
in the industry that the path to 2010
compliance lay in selective catalytic
reduction (SCR), a form of NOx
aftertreatment that has been embraced by a
number of engine and vehicle manufacturers and is widely used in Europe.
Once again, however, consistency
has reigned for Cummins. The company has announced that its 2010 ISX
engines will use more of the same
technologies it employed in 2002 and
2007 — again with some refinements
and some use of banked emissions
credits — and significantly, would not
require the addition of SCR.
According to Dr. Steve Charlton,
Cummins executive director of Heavy-Duty Engineering, the 2010 ISX will
be “an evolution of the ’07 engine,”
that “will look and feel the same as
what’s there today.
“We feel we have the key technologies in place to deliver product in 2010
that will satisfy customer requirements
and will not need NOx aftertreatment.
There will be, in terms of overall engine
architecture, very little change.”
That announcement flew in the face
of what had been the conventional
wisdom surrounding 2010: that once
again, vehicle manufacturers and operators would have to accommodate an
additional layer of aftertreatment in the
form of SCR. Along with the additional
expense and complexity of SCR, many
in the industry had raised concerns
