Ethanol is a very attractive fuel from an end-use perspective because it has a high chemical octane number and a high latent heat of vaporization. When an engine is optimized to take advantage of these fuel properties, both efficiency and power can be increased through higher compression ratio, direct fuel injection, higher levels of boost, and a reduced need for enrichment to mitigate knock or protect the engine and aftertreatment system from overheating.
The ASTM D5798 specification for high level ethanol blends, commonly called “E85,” underwent a major revision in 2011. The minimum ethanol content was revised downward from 68 vol% to 51 vol%, which combined with the use of low octane blending streams such as natural gasoline introduces the possibility of a lower octane “E85” fuel. While this fuel is suitable for current “ethanol tolerant” flex fuel vehicles, this study experimentally examines whether engines can still be aggressively optimized for the resultant fuel from the revised ASTM D5798 specification.
The performance of six ethanol fuel blends, ranging from 51-85% ethanol, is compared to a premium-grade certification gasoline (UTG-96) in a single-cylinder direct-injection (DI) engine with a compression ratio of 12.87:1 at knock-prone engine conditions. UTG-96 (RON = 96.1), light straight run gasoline (LSRG, RON = 63.6), and n-heptane (RON = 0) are used as the hydrocarbon blending streams for the ethanol-containing fuels in an effort to establish a broad range of knock resistance for high ethanol fuels.
Results show that nearly all ethanol-containing fuels are more resistant to engine knock than UTG-96 (the only exception being the ethanol blend with 49% n-heptane). This allows ethanol blends made with low octane number hydrocarbons to be operated at significantly more advanced combustion phasing for higher efficiency, as well as at higher engine loads.
While experimental results show that the octane number of the hydrocarbon blend stock does impact engine performance, there remains a significant opportunity for engine optimization when considering even the lowest octane fuels that are in compliance with the current revision of ASTM D5798 compared to premium-grade gasoline.
