Filtration of diesel and gasoline fuel in automotive applications is affected by many external and internal parameters, e.g. vibration, temperature, pressure, flow pulsation, and engine start-stop. Current test procedures for automotive fuel filters, proposed by most of the researchers and organizations including Society for Automotive Engineers (SAE) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO), do not apply the previously mentioned real-world-conditions. These operating conditions, which are typical for an automotive fueling system, have a significant effect on fuel filtration and need to be considered for the accurate assessment of the filter. This requires the development of improved testing procedures that will simulate the operating conditions in a fuel system as encountered in the real world. Although researchers have studied this topic in the past, they did not address the analysis of individual and combined effects of all the relevant fuel system parameters, which influence the filter performance. In this paper the effects of these parameters on the performance of diesel fuel filter for passenger cars will be studied using state-of-the-art testing facilities with the capability of simulating several of these system parameters in a laboratory set up.
