1984 CRC (Coordinating Research Council) Intermediate Temperature Driveability Program Using Gasoline-Alcohol Blends

摘要

Thirty 1984 and six 1979 model-year vehicles were tested with two hydrocarbon-only fuels and twenty hydrocarbon-alcohol blends during October and November 1984 at Paso Robles, California, to identify the effect of alcohol type, alcohol concentration, cosolvent type and methanol to cosolvent ratio on cold-start and warmup driveability at intermediate temperature (40 F-60 F). The secondary objective of the program was to determine if the 10, 50, and 90 percent distillation temperatures of these test fuels could predict cold-start and warmup driveability performance. In general, the hydrocarbon-only fuels gave better driveability than the hydrocarbon-alcohol blends; however, the 1984 model vehicles had better driveability on all fuels than earlier programs had exhibited. Fuel-injected vehicles gave better driveability than carburetted vehicles with all fuels. Increased volatility improved driveability with both hydrocarbon-only fuels and hydrocarbon-alcohol blends. Gasoline-ethanol blends gave better driveability than gasoline-methanol (without a cosolvent) blends. No significant differences were observed when ethanol and gasoline-grade tertiary butyl alcohol were compared as cosolvents in methanol blends.