Combustion performance of bio-ethanol at various blend ratios in a gasoline direct injection engine

Dale Turner, Hongming Xu, RF Cracknell, V Natarajan, X Chen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle

208 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Bio-ethanol has the potential to be used as an alternative to petroleum gasoline for the purpose of reducing the total CO2 emissions from internal combustion engines and this paper is devoted to the investigation of using different blending-ratios of bio-ethanol/gasoline with respect to spark timing and injection strategies. The experimental work has been carried out on a direct injection spark ignition engine at a part load and speed condition. It is shown that the benefits of adding ethanol into gasoline are reduced engine-out emissions and increased efficiency, and the impact changes with the blend ratio following a certain pattern. These benefits are attributed to the fact that the addition of ethanol modifies the evaporation properties of the fuel blend which increases the vapour pressure for low blends and reduces the heavy fractions for high blends. This is furthermore coupled with the presence of oxygen within the ethanol fuel molecule and the contribution of its faster flame speed, leading to enhanced combustion initiation and stability and improved engine efficiency. (c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1999-2006
Number of pages8
JournalFuel
Volume90
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Mar 2011

Keywords

  • Gasoline
  • SI engine
  • Ethanol
  • Combustion

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Combustion performance of bio-ethanol at various blend ratios in a gasoline direct injection engine'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this