Predicting the Temperature and Composition – Dependent Density and Viscosity of Diesel Fuel – Ethanol Blends

Adrian Todoruț,Andreia Molea,István Barabás

doi:10.3311/ppch.14757

Abstract

Density and viscosity are very important fuel properties which have a major influence not only on the fuel production, transportation and distribution processes but also on the processes that take place in an internal combustion engine. Developing robust and high precision density and viscosity models for stabilized diesel fuel – ethanol blends helps the production of fuel to adhere to the quality requirements regarding density and viscosity and the modeling and simulation of injection and combustion processes. For modeling the density and the viscosity of diesel fuel – ethanol blends, five mixtures were prepared with ethanol content up to 15 % (v/v) and were stabilized by adding tetrahydrofuran as a surfactant at room temperature. The temperature-dependent density and viscosity of the blends were measured at four different temperatures (0, 15, 40 and 50 °C) using an SVM 3000 type apparatus. Based on experimental data, several mixing rules were fitted to them and three new models were developed, of which two need only one experimental value. These models yield very good accuracies, presenting average relative deviations of 0.0604 % in the case of density and 3.8931 % in the case of viscosity.

Highlights

Nowadays, transportation is one of the most pollutant sector in urban environment because of the fossil nature of the energy source and the process of transformation of the chemical energy into mechanical work [1]
For modeling the density and the viscosity of diesel fuel – ethanol blends, five mixtures were prepared with ethanol content up to 15 % (v/v) and were stabilized by adding tetrahydrofuran as a surfactant at room temperature
5 Conclusions The temperature- and composition – dependent density and viscosity of diesel fuel – ethanol blends containing up to 15 % (v/v) ethanol were modeled in the temperature range of 0-50 °C

Summary

Introduction

Transportation is one of the most pollutant sector in urban environment because of the fossil nature of the energy source and the process of transformation of the chemical energy into mechanical work [1]. Another concern is the petrol reserves which are more and more limited and expensive [2]. In spite of the current development of alternative drivetrains of the automotive vehicles (hybrid, plug-in hybrid and electric), internal fossil-fueled combustion engines (ICE) will remain the most used propellent [3] for a while, even if they are banned in large urban agglomerations, like Stuttgart, Hamburg, Paris, Madrid, Paris, Madrid, Copenhagen, etc. Blends of diesel fuel – ethanol appear to be one of the potential solutions which could be used for fueling diesel engines [6,7,8]

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Conclusion