Ethanol Fuels Utilization
C. E. Goering,* C. Ritter, R. Parcell
University of Illinois

With the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs and Detroit Diesel Corp., a Detroit Diesel 225-kW, two-cycle, compression-ignition engine is being instrumented. A fuel containing 92%v 190-proof ethanol, 5%v anhydrous methanol, and 3%v kerosene will be evaluated as a fuel for city bus engines. A computer control system is being developed to operate the engine on the modified Chicago Transit Authority cycle. Engine performance parameters will be measured during the evaluations. The engine will be disassembled after 450 hours of operation to evaluate the effect of the fuel on the engine.

With USDA, an engine facility is being developed for accelerated evaluation of vegetable oil fuels. From experience, compression-ignition (CI) engines degrade when burning triglyceride forms of such fuels. Extended evaluation of such fuels in full-size engines is time consuming and expensive. The new facility features a small, two-cylinder CI engine; one cylinder runs on diesel fuel and the other on experimental fuel. Engine instrumentation measures the fraction of the load carried by each cylinder; any degradation caused by the experimental fuel can be detected by shifting the load to the other cylinder.