Design of an Instrumented Electric Vehicle for Tire and Road Wear Particle (TRWP) Sampling: a Focus on Representativeness

As the contribution of exhaust emissions from road traffic to air pollution steadily decreases, non-exhaust emissions (NEEs), like tire and road wear particles (TRWP), have emerged as a relevant source of particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) which deserves further investigation. This paper details the design of a novel instrumented electric vehicle engineered to sample TRWP under real-world driving conditions. Central to the study is the requirement for representative sampling, ensuring that properties such as particle mass, number concentration, and size distribution, remain unaltered during collection. Particular attention is reserved to isokinetic and isoaxial sampling conditions to minimize sampling bias. To mitigate particle transport losses, only conductive materials are used for the sampling lines, and their geometry is optimized and verified through a mathematical model. The vehicle is equipped with a high-resolution electrical low-pressure impactor (HR-ELPI+) and various cyclones for both online measurements and gravimetric sampling of PM fractions. The design presented in this work embodies the culmination of a methodology study aimed to the robustness of the experimental results.