Gel-cast ceramic foams potentially offer a more robust configurable alternative
filtration medium to monolithic wall flow filters (WFFs) for the reduction in particulate matter
(PM) emissions from diesel internal combustion engines. The fundamental back pressure and
filtration efficiency characteristics of gel-cast ceramic foam diesel particulate filters (DPFs)
have been investigated. Methodology is developed for the first time that allows the calculation
of the effect of local PM loading on the pressure drop characteristics from experimental data
without problems caused by the non-uniform PM loading in the filter that can be applied to all
depth bed filtration media. The back pressure and filtration efficiency relationships were used
to develop graphical design spaces to aid development of application-specific DPFs. Effects of
PM distribution on the pressure drop of the filter are presented. Filters with a non-even
distribution of PM were found to have lower pressure drops than filters with an evenly
distributed PM for the same average specific PM loadings. The predictions showed that gel-cast
ceramic foams can achieve comparable back pressure, filtration volume, and PM holding capacity
with WFFs with a lower filtration efficiency of about 80 per cent. The model demonstrated
that greater than 90 per cent filtration efficiency can be achieved with filter volumes
of about 0.6 times the volume of a WFF with a lower PM holding capacity
