COLD FLOW PROPERTIES OF DIESEL FUELS IN NORTH AMERICA, 2006-2015: GETTING BETTER OR WORSE?

摘要

Over 5,000 diesel fuel samples taken throughout the continental United States and Canada were tested for Cloud Point, Pour Point, and Cold Filter Plugging Point. Samples taken spanned the ten years from 2006 through early 2015. The resulting data was evaluated in its entirety and in subsets according to seasonal and geographical variation to determine trends in distillate fuel cold flow properties from the time that ULSD was first introduced until the present. Those results indicated that for all samples Pour Point has gotten worse, Cold Filter Plugging Point has gotten better by a very small amount, and Cloud Point has not changed. Any seasonal blending of samples to improve cold flow properties during winter months compared to summer months does not appear to have been successful when looking at all winter vs. summer samples over all regions, at least as far as the three cold flow tests are concerned. Additional analysis of the data set as variously subdivided is provided.