The three different ways for the generation of carbon particulate aerosols were considered to simulate the exhaust gases of the latest-generation Common-Rail Diesel engines for vehicle application: a small Diesel engine for electric power generation modules, an acetylene burner, and an ad hoc designed 'fluidised bed' pilot plant. The final goal of this work is to develop a simple and reliable apparatus to improve the knowledge of the filtration mechanisms for different particulate traps, avoiding the need to build-up large and expensive Diesel engine benches. The particles shape, their composition and size distribution have been assessed to compare the aerosols generated by the three pilot plants with those typical of the modern Common-Rail Diesel engines for passenger cars. Ceramic foam filters are finally employed as a common reference to check whether the filtration results obtained with the particles produced by such pilot plants are representative of those determined with their large-scale counterpart or not. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.