Car manufacturers today face the dual challenge of remaining competitive while addressing the impact of automotive emissions on the environment. With the emergence of advanced combustion modes, and the growing importance of downsizing along with the rising complexity of after treatment devices, fuel variability is now one of the major constraints that must be addressed for the automotive industry to move forward.
Accounting for variability in the properties of commercial fuel blends leads to significant improvements, such as allowing gasoline engine operation closer to the knock limit, adjusting engine tuning based on the fuel engine combination to ensure a better match between performance, emissions and consumption as measured on validation proto fuels and what is generated under real driving conditions.
The evaluation of fuel impact on the engine performance showed the limitations of characterizing the fuel variability from the conventional properties.
This paper demonstrates that the innovating HydroCarbon Profiler (HCP) approach explains and anticipates fuel variability impacts on engine pollutant emissions and consumption.
The HCP technology assesses fuel variability by measuring its molecular structure. This information can then be transmitted to the engine ECU allowing real time optimization of combustion processes for all possible fuel blends.