Combustion Characteristics of Various Alternative Fuels in SI Engine

This paper presents the effect of properties of fuels, such as gasoline, methanol, ethanol and propane, on the engine performance and on the combustion characteristics in a four-stroke SI engine under the similar operating conditions. From analysis of indicator diagram and the ionization probe measurement, the values of combustion characteristics, for instance, the ignition delay τ_f, the 10% heat release point τ_hr, the main combustion period τ_m and so on were obtained. These values are useful to predict the combustion characteristics of each fuel. these informations may be useable to develop the alternative fuel engine.