Experimental and theoretical investigation of using gasoline-ethanol blends in spark-ignition engines

The effects of ethanol addition to gasoline on an SI engine performance and exhaust emissions are investigated experimentally and theoretically. In the theoretical study, a quasi-dimensional SI engine cycle model, which was firstly developed for gasoline-fueled SI engines by author, has been adapted for SI engines running on gasoline-ethanol blends. Experimental applications have been carried out with the blends containing 1.5, 3, 4.5, 6, 7.5, 9, 10.5 and 12 vol% ethanol. Numerical applications have been performed up to 21 vol% ethanol. Engine was operated with each blend at 1500 rpm for compression ratios of 7.75 and 8.25 and at full throttle setting. Results obtained from both theoretical and experimental studies are compared graphically. Experimental results have shown that among the various blends, the blend of 7.5% ethanol was the most suitable one from the engine performance and CO emissions points of view. However, theoretical comparisons have shown that the blend containing 16.5% ethanol was the most suited blend for SI engines. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that the proposed SI engine cycle model has an ability of computing SI engine cycles when using ethanol and ethanol-gasoline blends and it can be used for further extensive parametric studies. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.