Present day technology is continuously being upgraded in order to meet demand for cleaner vehicles by meeting stringent emission norms. The other driving force is vehicle performance in terms of drivability, fuel economy and comfort. Gasoline engine meets all the requirements except fuel economy, where in diesel engine has an advantage. The need of the hour is to achieve drivability, comfort and fuel economy of diesel engine.
Apart from development of direct injection common rail and hybrid electric vehicle, this need has also caused development of gaseous fuels like LPG. The gaseous fuel could be CNG, LPG or Hydrogen depending upon the availability. This will also help in delay of depletion of fossil fuel reserves. Main features of this technology are its cost effective operation, modular nature and adaptation on old generation of vehicles. These gaseous fuels are having very simple carbon chain structure with lower carbon to hydrogen ratio of fuel compared to all other crude oil products. Hence they improve the green house gas emissions. Combustion of Natural Gas or LPG gives lower CO2 and more water vapour than burning gasoline.
This paper explains the methodology involved in developing a gas powered vehicle from existing base gasoline vehicle. An engineering approach explained here is involved in the development process. Some of the gas specific system behavior that significantly affects drivability and vehicle performance due to limitation of the system and/or due to system integration, is also dealt with in this paper.
These fuels are having potential to meet the next level of emission norms with simple low cost technology such as carburetion. That is, by changing the fuel from gasoline to gas, advanced technology is not required to meet stringent emission norms.