ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
SYMPOSIUM-WORKSHOP ON ALTERNATIVE FUELS
OCTOBER 15, 1974
HILTON INN
ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
SYMPOSIUM-WORKSHOP ON ALTERNATIVE FUELS
OCTOBER 15, 1974
HILTON INN
ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN
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CONFERENCE ON
ALTERNATIVE AUTOMOTIVE FUELS
Subj ect Page
Graham Hagey, EPA ; 2-9
John Belding, NSF 9-12
Toru Iura, Aerospace Corporation 12-14
Robert Sawyer, University of California... 14-22
Spencer Sorenson, University of Illinois . 22-28
Steve Bergin, University of Michigan 28-46
Fred Bracco, Princeton University......... 46-54
Fred Dryer, Princeton University... 54-62
Naeim Henein, Wayne State University. 62-72
Dr. Belding, NSF. ...; 72-73
Robert Adt, University of Miami. 74-82
Richard Pefley, University of Santa Clara 82-90
Henry Adelman, University of Santa Clara. , 90-95
Richard Johnson, University of Missouri ......96-109
City of Seattle 110-129
Jerome Hinkle, EPA... 129-133
Jack Freeman, Sun Oil Company 133-144
Jerry Alsup, Bureau of Mines 144-148
Joseph Colucci, General Motors Corp 148-170
Robert Lindquist, Chevron Research 170-186
Eric Wigg, Exxon Research and Engineering Corp 186-200
Richard Tillman, Continental Oil Company 200-214
Workshop 215-268
Illustrations
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Ann Arbor, Michigan
October 15, 1974
MR. HAGEY: I'm very pleased that you
are here today with us for this Conference on Alternative
Fuels and Fundamental Combustion Research.
We are hosting this Conference with
the National Science Foundation. Dr. John Belding is here
with us from the Science Foundation today. The Conference,
again, sponsored by the Alternative Automotive Power System
Division of the Environmental Protection Agency and the
National Science Foundation, Advanced Energy and Research
Technology Division. The primary purpose of the Conference
is to inform you of directions we in the Federal Government
intend to take in developing technologies needed to utilize
new fuels in motor vehicles which are not derived from
petroleum resources, but rather fuels which can be made from
more abundant natural resources in the U.S.
Our role is not to develop production-
related technologies for these fuels, but rather to look at
these fuels from the viewpoint of the user -- in this case,
motor vehicles.
To place the present and planned federal
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program in perspective, we are today reviewing ongoing private-
sector and federally-supported R&D programs on alternative
fuels.
In particular, we are reviewing research
principally on methanol not because we are singularly
interested in methanol, but rather because this fuel has
received principal attention as a near-term alternative fuel.
Industry has conducted considerable research on methanol,
and the present federal program is emphasizing methanol research
at the present time.
Finally, the Conference seeks to provide
a focal point of coordination for the numerous federally-
supported programs on alternative fuels and related combustion
research.
In 197 3, the Alternative Automotive
Power System Division initiated a program of study in applied
research on alternative automotive fuel, Chart 1.
The goal of the program is to evaluate
the application on non-petroleum based fuels and energy sources
as partial and complete substitutes to gasoline and distillates
from petroleum for use in motor vehicle systems.
The program, by study and research,
provides for evaluation and assessment of the following fuels
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which have been determined to be the most promising future
alternatives: gasoline-like fuels from non-petroleum energy
resources; for example, gasoline distillates from coal and
oil shale. Secondly, unconventional fuels from non-petroleum
energy resources; namely, methanol from coal and organic waste.
Finally, hydrogen for nuclear energy.
Chart 2 identifies the program elements
planned from the research on these fuels.
The evaluation and assessment will
provide a relative ranking of the fuels and will, in the con-
duct of the evaluation, provide information on the characteri-
zation and future automotive utilization aspects of the fuels
and their combinations. Thus, the program will provide
appropriate information on the future fuels for automotive
transportation, such that rational public policy and technical
choices can be made for the future introduction, and use of these
fuels.
The federal program will address the
research.and utility aspects of the fuels. The Conference
today will provide you with an overview of the program, and
although we have singled out for review the areas of basic
combustion and methanol research, I wish to emphasize that our
future research will be broad-based and will address all of
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the above fuels.
The initial feasibility study of
alternative fuels was conducted by Exxon Research and the
Institute of Gas Technology. Final reports on these studies
will be distributed shortly.
As a follow-on to the feasibility study,
research was initiated in early 1974 at the Bureau cf Mines
for the characterization of methanol and methanol-gasoline
blends in conventional internal combustion engines.
Principal focus of the 1974 research
is on emissions, performance, and fuel economy of 5, 10 and
15 percent methanol-gasoline blends. Additional research will
be conducted in 19 7 5 at the Bureau of Mines for the characteri-
zation of pure methanol and gasoline-like fuel from coal and
oil shale.. The methanol research program is described by
Chart No. 3. We anticipate the research on gasoline-like
fuels will be structured similarly.
In 1974, we initiated research on
hydrogen storage for automobiles. Although the feasibility
study indicated that hydrogen is a speculative automotive
fuel and its use would not occur before the year 2000, we
believe that limited research is warranted on the principal
automotive hydrogen-technology gap, namely on-board vehicle
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storage: Chart No. 4.
It is anticipated that research will
be sponsored in 1975 with government, industry and universities
to investigate health effects, materials, fuel blend stability
and atmospheric effects as well as continued engine combustion
research on these alternative fuels.
As a follow-on to the Exxon and IGT studies
feasibility of alternative fuels, Stanford Research Institute
is conducting a study of the impacts associated with the
future use of these fuels. This study will develop scenarios
for the introduction of alternative fuels where there are
competing uses for sources and fuels and will identify the
critical factors and impacts for these resource-fuel shifts
which are believed to be most promising.
In summary, today's Conference provides
an overview or a recent and in-progress research on combustion
and methanol fuels. It is my desire that this review will
encourage the experts assembled here today to provide us in
government with information on methanol-technology gap, since
we are actively researching this fuel at the present time.
More importantly, however, Dr. Belding
and I will seek to draw conclusions in the workshops on the
future directions which the NSF combustion program arid the
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federal Alternative Fuels program should be directed in the
alternative fuels area.
For the combustion workshops scheduled
from 3:30 to 4:00, Dr. Belding will present his views of the
priority future combustion research needs, and these are
ten priority areas. He will then ask, through a three-member
panel, for a discussion of these priorities, and in particular
we are seeking your expert opinions to the combustion research
needs in alternative fuels.
In a similar manner, I will, in the
alternative fuels workshop scheduled from 4:00 to 5:00 P.M.,
solicit your expert recommendations with regard to the direc-
tions and emphasis of the Federal Alternative Fuels Program.
Can I have the lights up just a little
bit, please?
So much for the so-called formal
introduction. A few housekeeping chores. We are breaking
at 12 o'clock for dinner, lunch. We reconvene ± 1:30. I
think the Hilton can take care of all of us for lunch. If we
do get a situation that's overcrowded, I hope we don't, but
if we do, there is a shopping center right adjacent to the
Hilton and there are lots of restaurants in there. We have a
very tight schedule today. I'm going to -- Dr. Belding and I
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will insist upon keeping to the schedule,, even though we have
already dropped 15 minutes in starting, but we will we will
break at 12 o'clock. We will reconvene at 1:30.
I am adding two items to the agenda
that don't show on the letter that went out.
Mr. Jerome Hinkle will, at 11 o'clock
and if I can't schedule it then, it will be at 1:30 a short,
five-, ten-minute discussion not discussion so much as a
presentation, just summary of what the Stanford Research study
is doing. This is the impact study on the alternative fuels.
Also, some people from the City of
Seattle are with us today. The/ have a proposed program to
Dave, how. should I describe it? to take all of their garbage
and to make synthesis gas which would be converted to methanol
and/or ammonia, a combination, perhaps, of ammonia and
methanol, and they are interested in converting their city
fleet of cars to run on methanol. So they are with us today
and I understand they have a slide presentation which they
would like to present, and so they will make this available
at five o'clock. If any of you are interested in staying,
please stay. I intend to stay. I think it's a very interest-
ing program and I think those of you that are interested in
methanol will find this a very fascinating subject.
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One last thing:. We are being recorded.
What I hope to do, when we close, or not today but subsequently,
we will put out a summary of the Conference. We will have the
tape. The girls will go through the tape and we'll put out a
summary on the Conference and make this available to each of
you attending today. We are not as you know, people pre-
senting today are not giving papers; there are no proceedings,
as such, from the Conference. So this will be the record and
our secretaries will transcribe and prepare a synopsis summary
of the Conference and we'll make this available to all of you.
Now, I think we are ready. John?
Dr. John Belding of the National Science Foundation.
DR. BELDING: Well, I would like to
discuss just for a minute what the NSF objectives are and some
of you who are not familiar with the new role of NSF, the
applied role, may wonder why we can set objectives.
The old NSF just gave grants for doing
basic research, and if the researcher comes in with a gem,
that's great.
The applied side of NSF is called
RANN, Research Applied to National Needs, and we are very
definitely mission-oriented. I'm in the Energy Division and
we are trying to conserve or find new methods of producing
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energy.
The program that we are going to talk
about today is just the automotive combustion area. We are
also interested in new materials, although we do not have any
funding in that area at this point.
Well, what are the objectives of the
NSF automotive program? Basically, the objectives are to
understand better the combustion of internal combustion engines.
We are not at this point working turbines. We are working
spark ignition and diesel, and we don't have any plans
particularly for going into turbines. We have another part
of the NSF program which deals with turbine combustion.
So we are trying to understand, then,
the basic combustion phenomena to make the automotive engine
more efficient and, in doing this, we are looking at \arious
things like lean combustion, stratified charge, alternative
fuels as part of that, and we are trying to then infuse this
understanding into the people who use that type of engine,
namely the industry.
Our funding last year was $900,000,
and this year it's 900,000 and next year -- knows? With the
new Energy Administration opening up, we may go out of
existence; we may continue to have a less significant role, or more
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significant role. At this point, the head of NSF and the heads
of lots of other agencies are in a little conference, trying
to decide who does what to who, and I'm sure we'll all come
out on the short end of it.
Well, for the time being, we are going
to have to assume we are going to stay in business. I have
been in Washington for eight years and I assume I'll be there
for the rest of my career, with some agency, whether it be
NSF or anybody else, and I assume that we are going to still
do automotive combustion. Those are the real facts of what's
going on.
How do we propose to get these kinds
of studies done? Well, if you will look at today's program,
we have one industrial contract and the rest of them are with
universities. That was not planned that way.. It's not that
we don't like universities or we don't like industrial
contractors. What we want to do is get the best research for
the amount of dollars that we have, and if that can be done
in industry, then we go to industry. If it can be done in a
teaming arrangement, we go to a team, and we are pursuing some
team arrangements now between the automotive companies and
universities.
Well, what we are going to do this
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morning is, we are going to review the ongoing contracts that
NSF has, and there are seven.of those.
The first one will be given by the
first overview will be given by Dr. Toru Iura, of Aerospace
Corporation. He is looking at: Where Do We Go from Here?
Exactly what this Conference is looking at. The only dif-
ference is, he's being paid for it. His results will be in
in June., right? May? And he is going to give you a quick
overview today, this morning, of what he has come up with so
far, namely state of the art and a little bit of generalities
on where we go.
This afternoon, then, we'll take all. this
knowledge that we have accumulated all day and try to come up
with a matrix of where we go in the combustion and alternative
fuels area, as Graham has indicated.
So if there are any quick questions,
I'll be glad to answer them. If not, we'll go ahead and listen
to the speakers who know what their technical areas are all
about.
Okay? Toru?
MR. I.URA: What I'm going to talk about
is the grant that we have at National Science Foundation, which
is a research planning study for achieving reduced automotive energy
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consumption. The end objective is to delineate a research plan in this
area. This grant activity was initiated in May 1974, and as mentioned,
it is scheduled to be completed in May 1975. The grant budget is
$139,000 and the grant project officer is Dr. Tom Anderson of the National
Science Foundation. He have advisory panels for this study to assure
that we get maximum inputs and review comments from a cross-section of
industry, university, and government personnel, and to be sure that
there is proper coordination between the various organizations that have
a stake in the automotive combustion or drivetrain area.
The objective of this study is to systematically assess meaningful
internal combustion engine, component, and powertrain-alternatives to
determine which approaches offer potentials for improvements in automo-
tive fuel consumption, and also to assess the impacts of alternative fuels
on these approaches. The eventual objective is to define a time-phased
research program in the combustion, materials, carburetion and controls,
transmission, and powertrain areas, or any research associated with the
drivetrain, from the engine to the tires. We will not be examining the
vehicles or bodies during this study. Also, we will attempt in our study
to assess those socials economic, or legislative policy factors that
might impact on the type of research that we might suggest in the plan,
and will also attempt to identify research in these areas.
It should be noted that the study is limited to the internal combustion
engine. This includes conventional engines, variations of the stratified
charge engine, lean burn concepts, and the diesel engine. We will be
also evaluating research related to alternative fuels as they were defined
today. We are not evaluating gas turbines or Rankine cycles research
needs, since the AAPS program is pursuing these developments.
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The study will address fuel economy factors, primarily for passenger
cars. Although the emphasis is on passenger cars, we will also be
examining buses and trucks in order to determine the type of research
that can be done to improve fuel economy in that area. I think I have men-
tioned before that we were examining several engine variations; in that
regard we are also looking at the rotary engine and whether research
should be performed in that area.
A block diagram giving the various study tasks will furnish an idea
of what we are doing in the study. The initial task involves a state-
of-the-art survey. A key input to this task, so far as data sources are
concerned, will be information obtained from government and industry
liaison. We will be making maximum use of the studies that have been
sponsored by government agencies such as the DOT/EPA-sponsored studies
sponsored by cPA. There are, of course, many other studies that have
been going on that will be used in our evaluation. We have been examining
the information from all of these studies with, respect to identifying where
the payoffs are in fuel economy. We have visited many people and we plan
to visit many more who are actively involved in automotive research, so as
to determine what technology gaps exist, what work is going on, and how
this relates to the research gaps. The end objective is to delineate a
time-phasej research plan which will be valuable to the National Science
Foundation as well as other government agencies, such as EPA and DOT, who
have roles in the automotive fuel economy area.
Approximately fifty organizations (research laboratories, universities,
and government agencies) have been visited or contacted thus far on this
study to discuss their research activities and suggestions for further
efforts. We are essentially half-way through our contacts at this point.
Members of the automotive research community, your inputs are vital to our
study. I will try to discuss this subject with those of you with whom I
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have not previously met personally. If, by some chance, I am unable
to meet with you today, I will try to see you at a later date.
Are there any questions?
In this research, does this investigation include operator aspects
of energy conservation?
Are you talking about driver aids, that type of thing? No. We are
not considering that type of concept in our study, but it does consider
similar things that have been covered by other studies. This study is
basically oriented to fundamental research.
DR. BELDING: Anybody else?
Thank you, Toru.
The next speaker will be Dr. Bob Sawyer from California, and he is going
to talk about automotive engine combustion with excess air, better known
as lean combustion
DR. SAWYER: I have a few copies of an outline of my comments.
Maybe if I just sort of pass those out, I won't have to carry them back
to California
It is always difficult to come to describe a research program which is
only three months old, because you end up speaking about things that you
intend to do rather than things that you have done, and that is always
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a little empty, I believe. But. I would like to describe our
program and what we have accomplished to date.
First of all, please note that I am
just one of five faculty investigators on this program, so
it's a large effort in terms of people. We will eventually
have about ten graduate research assistants working on this
program and two professional research staff members as well.
Combustion research at the University
of California has been a substantial effort within the
Department of Mechanical Engineering for a long period of time,
certainly since before I arrived at Berkeley. At the present
time, we have about eight faculty and 30 graduate students
working in this area, with an annual funding of about
six-tenths of a million dollars per year from a variety of
sources, including several NSF programs, AFOSR, UPRI, NBS,
NASA, and some smaller programs as well.
Berkeley had, up until a few years ago,
a substantial engine research program which was associated
with the name of Professor Ernest Starkman now known as
Mr. Starkman at General Motors. Unfortunately, with his
departure and the decrease of funding in that area, our work
in the field of engine combustion was decreased.
It never went to zero and we are pleased to be back
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in the engine research business again with this substantial
program from the National Science Foundation.
We, too, have an advisory panel,
including participants primarily from industry and also from
government, which we look to to help us in guiding our research.
The words "combustion with excess air"
include an awful lot. Our objective is simply to understand
from a fundamental standpoint how combustion occurs in systems
in which there is an excess of air and this has application.,
of course, to a number of different engine types which are
of increased interest now. The lean burn engines, the torch
ignited engines, the divided chamber stratified charge engines,
the direct injection stratified charge engines, and even the
diesel engines fall in this general category. We simply want
to find out what limits the combustion process with an excess
of air and the research is focused upon a single pulse, high-
pressure compression-expansion device, an extension of
similar work done other places, particularly at MIT.
The diagram here is in too much detail
to be seen, but perhaps the material which we have handed out
to you will explain what this device is.
It is different from other similar
experiments in that it provides for both compression and
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expansion. Those of you who are concerned with the intake
and exhaust stroke of the engine realize that this device
does not cover that part of it. It's not because we don't
think that part is important, but simply because we wish to
focus on the combustion process itself.
The important experimental aspects are
that the test section has full optical access over the entire
open volume in one transverse direction to the piston motion
and ported access for optical and mechanical access for sanipling
and pressure instruments in the other axis normal to the piston
motion.
The combustion process will be observed
optically/ using high-speed laser schlieren and high speed sheer
interferrometry techniques which have been used previously at
the University of California by Professor Oppenheim in his
detonation research work.
In support of this focus experiment,
we also have initiated several fundamental research tasks and
several applied or engine research tasks. We believe that the
fundamental topics dealing with such areas as low-pressure
combustion and chemical kinetics are important to give us a
firm scientific foundation for the single pulse experiment and
that the engine studies are important to keep us on the right
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track of real problems and also to assist in formulating our
results in a manner which will be useful to engine designers.
Some of these other tasks and the
responsible personnel are indicated here. First of all, the
pulse high-pressure experiments are under the direction 'of
Professor Oppenheim. We have initiated steady low-pressure
experiments in an attempt to understand the chemistry primarily
of the lean combustion process, which I am directing, and we
are working on spectroscopic techniques for time-resolved
quantitative spectroscopy for the single pulse experiment and
this work comes under the direction of Professor Greif. This
is not a sophisticated approach, but simply the use of
emission and absorption spectroscopy for composition measuring.
To back up the experimental work, we
have several theoretical and modeling programs which have been
initiated and we hope to draw heavily upon the work of other
investigators in the NSF program in this area.
We have also initiated several engine
studies and particularly work on homogeneous lean combustion
and upon a divided chamber engine, with the last two tasks
cfelayed for a later part of our research program.
But over the first three months' period, we have been in the
phase of final design and fabrication of the single pulse
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experiment; that is in the assembly phase now and initial
check-out will occur during the month of November.
In the material which was handed out,
I have indicated in somewhat more detail the staffing and the
particular areas in which we are working. This shows the
interrelationship of the various tasks, simply with the focus
upon the pulse-type pressure experiment with both fundamental
and applied topics feeding into and from that particular
program. We do have some interesting results from a single-
cylinder divided chamber study based upon a Waukasha CFR
cetane engine, similar to the Newhall work, in which we have
been studying pure gasoline and gasoline-methanol blends.
The system is such that the 25 percent volume free chamber
is injected while the 75 percent volume main chamber is
carbureted. The results are preliminary but interesting,
nonetheless. It's indicated here in terms of the hydrocarbons
and nitric oxide level. We notice, under similar operating
conditions,, substantial differences between the methanol-
gasoline blends and pure gasoline, which we find somewhat
surprising. We do not expect to see such substantial dif-
ferences from what we have learned from the literature. This
work is continuing. There is much more experimental data than
I am showing here that has not been analyzed in detail yet.
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We have also recently completed a
study of atmospheric pressure, turbulent diffusion planes,
in which we have been surprised by the appearance of high
concentrations of nitrogen dioxide as immediate combustion
products. We think this has application to other turbulent
diffusbn combustion processes, perhaps to diesel engine
combustion process, which it is also known to produce
anomalously high nitrogen dioxide concentrations.
Other research tasks which I will not
describe in detail but will merely mention by name which have
been initiated include lean combustion in a rotary engine,
a part of which involves also hydrogen addition fundamental
measurements of quench distance, obviously related to trying
to understand the formation of hydrocarbons better, some
rather basic work in cycle analysis which we. thought was
essential to build up for our own background information.
We hare initiated analytical modeling of the single pulse
experiment to be able to better analyze the data from that
when it is obtained, and also our work on spectroscopic
observation techniques has been initiated by, in this case
(inaudible) awaiting the construction of the single pulse
experiment.
Very briefly, then, that's mostly what
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we intend to do and a little bit of what we have accomplished
in the first few months.
DR. BELDING: Any questions? Yes, sir?
MR. LETZ: My name is Sam Letz, from
Penn State.
Bob, what, under your engine category
there, what experiments to you plan to do or are planned in
the engine itself that are not already documented?
DR. SAWYER: The engine experiments
are primarily single-cylinder engine experiments and we are
attempting to conduct the same type of experiments in the
engines that will be conducted in the single pulse experiment.
The initial single" pulse experiment will be homogeneous, fully
vaporized, spark-ignited experiments. We will have backed
that up with single-cylinder work of exactly the same type,
the same fuel composition, same pressurised rate and same
mixture composition. We don't mean to imply that this hasn't
been done extensively and reported extensively in the litera-
ture. We are certainly aware of the vast background of
work in the area. We simply wanted our own laboratory to be
able to have these comparison experiments, to make sure that
our single pulse experiment is not too far off base from
actual engine work.
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DR. BELDING: Any other questions?
You will notice that both Tbra and Bob have mentioned that they
have no results yet. They are new programs.
There is a reason for this. The NSF
Program is almost nine months old now. It started in
December of last year, and we were given $900,000 and told to
move, and we moved, and we have seven contracts. Hopefully,
we are going to move a little slower from now on and we are
going to we are going to do a little more planning than we
had a chance to do last year.
1 think that we were very fortunate,
however, in getting the kinds of people that we got under
contract, and I think you will see that as the morning goes
on.
The next speaker is Professor Sorensen
from Illinois, and he is going to talk about improving the
performance of fuel and fuel consumption of dual chamber
stratified charge spark-ignition engines.
PROFESSOR SOREIISEM: I don't have any
slides, so you don't have to (inaudible).
Bob has already indicated one of our
problems also. We are I think we are a month less on
experience than they are. We have only been in operation
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about two months in this contract.
As was indicated, the title is
Improving the Performance of Fuel Economy of Dual Chamber
Stratified Charge Spark-Ignition Engines. Our basic interest
there is on the performance of fuel economy considerations.
We are interested in emissions. Of course, we don't want to
let emissions get too far out of sight, but that's not our
primary objective.
To do this, we have a program which
has a double thrust to it. One is an experimental program;
the other is an analytical program, which I will describe.
At least our plans as I say, we have only been in operation
roughly two montns, so obviously we don't have any results.
The experimental study will be
performed on single-cylinder engines and we hope to use
experimental work or we plan to use experimental work in
conjunction with our computer simulations.
What we are going to do is take two
single-cylinder air-cooled engines, which are smaller than a
CFR engine; about three inch bore, three and a half inch st-roke,
and modify them. We have two engines which are identical.
One, we will take and put on a dual chamber head which we
can which will have provision for modifying the location,
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geometry and size of the prechamber. We plan to run our basic performance
data on this engine.
The second engine will be set up for
taking high-speed combustion movies in an overhead valve
setup. It will be similar to the setup or the operation
which was done by Dr. Goldrich at GM and by researchers at
Southwest Research Institute. We have put in a quartz piston
in a mirror arrangement which enables you to look up from the
bottom into the combustion chamber, and what we'll be doing is
taking high-speed movies in order to get some more information
on the basic combustion process, evaluate the mixing which
occurs, the kind of combustion, the richness and the leanness.
We should have some information on that from the luminosity
of the flames and other things like that.
So what we plan to do is to experimentally
run performance tests on one engine and use the other engine
with the same head mounted on our movie arrangement in order
to compare the two results and' try to explain what effects
that we do see.
At the present time, we have the engines
on hand. We are working on installing them. Installation is
pretty well along. We will design the heads and the arrange-
ment for the high-speed movies.
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I might mention I forgot to mention
at the start that I am working with Professor William L. Hull
of the Internal Combustion Engine Laboratory at the University
of Illinois, who has had considerable experience in the area
of engine development and taking high-speed movies, and we
currently routinely take high-speed movies of diesel combus-
tion.
For high-speed movies we have
facilities to run up to 22,000 frames per second. We don't
know if we will need that high a framing rate. We can run any-
where from about a thousand to 22,00 0 frames per second, so
we should be able to cover things reasonably well.
So we plan to take the experimental
data, as I say, and use that in conjunction with a computer
modeling program cycle simulation, which we are going to
develop these two things concurrently, take data from the
experimental portion and use that to help develop our model,
and then hopefully, if we get things done,
we'll use these in a program, to try to
improve the performance, and see what we can establish as the
limiting factors for performance and operation of the engine.
As I say, we have the engines.
The installation is in process. We hope to have the first
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engine running, one which does not have the high-speed movies,
hope to lwe that running somewhere around the first of the
year, if things go reasonably well.
The high-speed movie engine thing will
take longer. That's a lot more work to that. We have to do
substantially more modifications to the engine in order to
make that occur and we are basically about complete with our
literature on the process. We are just starting to get together
our thoughts and ideas on the computer models. We are not very
far along, so it's hard to be terribly specific about things
we are going to do and I apologize for that, but, as I say, we
are only about two months along into the project and any
comments in terms of directions and things like that are, of
course, welcome. But, as I say, our main goal is to look at
performance and fuel economy, try to improve these through the
stratified charge concept, develop its ultimate feasibility
(inaudible).
I think that's about all I can say
about the project at this time.
DR. BELDING: Any questions?
VOICE: Did you say 22,000 frames per
second?
PROFESSOR SORENSEN: It's half frame.
26
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It's on a high-cam.
VOICE: I beg your pardon?
PROFESSOR SORENSEN: It's 22,000.
It's on -- if you do it -- it's on a high-cam camera, at a
half frame, you get 22,000 pictures per second. We have a
Fastex also.
MR. BLUMER: Paul Blumer, Ford Motor
Company. What specific experimental inputs from your high-
speed photograph do you envision going, into your cycle
analysis?
PROFESSOR SORENSEN: We are looking
into mixing rates, depending on the size of the chamber. If
you have a bigger chamber, the mixing may be important between
the rich chamber and the lean chamber. We haven't set any
specific limits on exactly what chambers we are going to look
at. We hope to make our heads adaptable enough so that we
can vary that, the size ratio, and look at yhat that effect
is on the combustion process, the burning rate, the mixing
rate, the structure of the flame, what we can see about the
surface of the flame itself, those sort of parameters, to see
if they need to be incorporated into the program and, if so,
to develop ways to do so.
DR. BELDING: Way in back, of the room.
27
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Mr. Stahman'. Ralph Stahman of EPA,
Is this a three-valve (inaudible) concept or
PROFESSOR SORENSEN: Yes. I'm sorry,
I "didn't mention thatv It's three-valve. We were planning to
run all free mix. We don't plan on using any injection at this
time. We could, but we don't plan on it right now.
DR. BELDING: All right, thank you.
Well, the next speaker will be from
the University of Michigan. Jay Bolt is principal investigator
on the problem, but Steve Burgen is going to give the talk
today and the talk is entitled "Lean Mixture Combustion and
Combustion Bomb Studies."
Steven?
MR. BURGIN: Thank you, John.
We have got a lot to cover here in a
short time, so I would like to g=t right into the slides, please,
if I could tH/e the first one.
This shows that we have two distinct
stratified charge combustion programs that are ongoing at
the University of Michigan and we believe that these fit well
into our fairly long history of combustion research at the
Automotive Laboratory. The first, the open chamber study.,
has been in progress for almost two years and it was funded
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initially by Mechanical Engineering Departmental funds and
a grant from the Outboard Marine Corporation. As of September 1
of this year, we have the National Science Foundation funding.
Now, I would like to go through the
open chamber bomb study at some length, since we do have quite
a little bit more to say about it, and then come back and say
a few things about the divided chamber study which we have
just started recently.
I might add that the reason for using
bomb studies to obtain the kind of information that we are
after is that hopefully bomb studies allow wide, independent
variation of parameters and are somewhat less complicated than
engines, although we are finding that bomb studies can be quite
complex in their experimental setup also.
I might add that we have had, over many
years, a long contact with people in the industry, always
having in mind the way the information we generate can be
used.
Could I have the next one, please?
Now, this shows the objective of the open chamber bomb study.
We believe that others have already demonstrated that open
chamber stratified charge engines can produce low emissions,
excellent fuel economy, a:nd a wide fuel tolerance. So our
29
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interest is not specifically in emissions or these other
matters, but in obtaining a better understanding of the
combustion process, because we believe that this is what's
needed to advance the development of these engines.
Next slide, please. These are
specific objectives in this program. We want to learn what
essentially you have to do to get the fuel to burn and that
really is a problem. We are interested in flame initiation
and flame development. Of course, we want to minimize the
amount of unburned fuel.
Next one, please. This shows briefly
our experimental approach and 1/11 have a little more to say
on each of these three points. Essentially, what we do is
set up in our open chamber bomb the kind of conditions that
you would expect in an engine at the end of compression. Then
we inject fuel and spark-ignite it and see what happens over
a period of a few milliseconds and then we are able to analyze
the combustion ^ses to try to determine what has happened.
I might add that under No. 2 there we take high-speed motion
pictures of what goes on and hopefully that will give us
hopefully that will answer quite a few questions about mixture
formation and flame development.
Next one, please. Now, .this shows a
30
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plane view of combustion in our open chamber bomb or in an
open chamber stratified charge engine. It is shown to scale --
the bore is four inches in this case. Now, in order for this
experiment to work, three basic systems are required.
First, we need a way to generate an
air swirl. Second, we have to inject fuel into that air swirl,
and then we need a system to fire the spark plug at the right
time.
Now, we have developed systems at the
University cf Michigan to achieve all these things, and I'll
have some data later on the development of the fuel injection
system. I might add that sealing this chamber for -- we start
out at essential combustion chamber density, sealing that
pressure, combustion pressure, and having a shaft come into
the bomb to drive the fan to cpnerate the swirl was quite a
formidable problem, but we have overcome that.
Now, you might recognize that the
configuration that is indicated in this slide looks more like
one particular version of open chamber stratified charge
engine than any of the others. We do not mean by this slide
to imply that any one type of configuration is better or more
suitable than the others, but we do believe that this is a
pretty good place for us to start because it's a fairly
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straightforward concept in which mixture is formed and burned
essentially immediately. This is not to say that the other
kinds of stratified charge engines are less desirable or won't
work or any of that kind of thing. We just believe this is
a good place to start. I might point out one thing that's
required in this kind of an engine is excellent control of
fuel injection, probably a better level of control than is
required in diesel engines. Certainly, after-injection or
secondary injection and dribbling flow are very undesirable
in this kind of a system.
Could I have the next one, please?
This is an elevation view of the bomb that you have seen in
the previous slide. It shows the fan which we used to generate
a high-velocity swirl. The fuel injector is also shown.
One thing you will notice is we are
trying to simulate here the essentially, the clearance
volume of an engine and certainly the depth of this bomb is
much greater than what you would have in an engine at the
end of compression.
Well, the reasons that we had to make
the bomb so deep were to fit the fan in to get a good sized
quartz window in on the side. I might add that we have a
quartz window up above, too, and we vented to have some
flexibility
32
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in positioning the fuel injector. So we accepted this large
volume and with it a large amount of excess air, since we do
achieve essentially clearance volume density, so we do have a
large excess of air.
Now, even though we have about six
times as much air in this bomb as you would expect in an engine
of a four-inch bore by four-inch stroke, we arc injecting the
quantities of fuel that you would expect in an engine of that
size. So the bomb is way lean under all conditions.
Okay. Now, the next two slides or
next three slides, I show some pictures of equipment. This
is the bomb itself. You notice that its construction is quite
heavy. The reason for that is that we took th§ position that
we would design it for reasons of safety so th^t if we got
(inaudible) mixture in there, which we don't expect to ever
have, but which could occur if the fuel injection system mal-
functioned, and then we waited long enough for that mixture
to become, for the fuel to become completely vaporized, and
then we got spark, we wanted the structure to be able to
withstand the pressure rise, and, for safety reasons, we
decided to go this way rather than to use any kind of a relief
valve system. So it looks awful heavy, but there is a reason
for that.
33
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I night point out that the tank you see
in the lower right is the, accumulator tank for the fuel
injector system. That is capable of being charged up to
20,000 psi in order to drive the fuel injection system.
Next slide, please. Okay. This shows
the fan which is used to drive the air swirl. We have an air
turbine system mounted below the bomb which drives it. I have
another slide showing some of the specifications, but this
can be run up to many thousands of rpm. The air turbine, is
rated at 30,000 rpm, but we find that it's not possible to
provide enough power to drive the fan ct that speed. We can
get to about 25,000 rpm with it, and the next slide is an
exploded view of the bomb. This shows the two quartz windows
and the balls in which the fuel injector and spark plug are
mounted. The reason for using balls is that it makes the
geometry easily variable, and the fuel injector and spark
plug can be positioned essentially anywhere within the bomb.
Next slide. Now, this shows the
limitations of our study to the early phases of combustion.
We are simply not able to simulate the late things that
happened late in the cycle, but we are able, I believe, to
simulate quite well what happens during the time that mixture
is being formed and ignited. Our excess air, of course,
34
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limits us in the sense that if we wait too long after
injection, we lose the fuel to a lot to diffusion in all
the excess air. We believe that the swirl we set up is an
excellent approximation to what you get in an engine and we
have some recent research results -- well, not our own, but
froir. other people that the kind of swirl we set up is
approximately equal to what you get in an engine and then, of
course, since there is no expansion, we cannot simulate what
happens late in the cycle.
Now, going back to the experimental
approach, the next slide, this, as you remember, was Point 1
of the experimental approach. This gives some of the numbers
involved and the conditions that we set up in the bomb before
combustion. I think that's pretty much self-explanatory.
The next one, the next slide, shows
the things that we measure during the few milliseconds after
fuel is injected. Now, fuel injection line pressure is an
indicator of how, how consistent the rate of injection is
during the time that the fuel injection system is in operation
or that the needle is open. Of course, the needle lift and
spark timing are fundamental to the timing of this whole
combustion process. The gas pressure gives an indication
of the rate of energy release and hopefully our high-speed
35
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movies will tell us a lot about mixture formation, where the
flame goes, that kind of thing.
And the next slide is Step 3 of our
experimental approach, which is the step in which we can
analyze the products cf combustion.
Okay. Now, I would like to briefly
show you some of our results. I am sorry to report we don't
have any combustion results at this point, but we have done
quite a bit in the development of our accumulator-type fuel
injector system and that may be of interest.
The next slide, please. This shows
three cycles, three consecutive cycles of the accumulator-
type fuel, injector system, and you can see that the repeat-
ability is excellent. Actually well, we get a little bit
of a thick line in a few places, but for all practical purposes,
the performance is constant. The conditions are shown here.
Now, in an actual test run,we would
have an additional piece of information on a photograph like
this. We have a blip in time where we take a small piece out
of the pressure trace and at the right time, at the time that
the spark fires, we get a blip on the screen, showing the timing
of the spark. We do this by essentially adding a spike
voltage to the line pressure, fuel line pressure trace.
36
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Now, we have a second scope for
recording of chamber pressure and also we have run that
chamber pressure signal through an operational amplifier to
obtain rate of pressure rise. The reason for using a second
oscilloscope is that we would probably -- we feel sure we
would want a different sweep rate or the pressure measurements.
Okay. If we could go to the next one,
please. The point I wanted to make here, very briefly, in
the interests of time, is that the air swirl rate determines
the rate at which mass of air flows into the flame zone. In
other words, the total mass of air that's trapped in the
cylinder -- this is in reference to an engine now is pretty
well constant regardless of speed and load, if we assume that
the engine is on throttle. So that the air swirl rate deter-
mines the mass rate of air flow into the flame zone. Therefore,
the mass swirl rate and correspondingly the engine speed
determine what kind of a fuel injection rate that we need.
So if we go to the next slide now,
we'll see that for a 4 by 4 unthrottled engine, naturally
aspirated engine, that for each fuel injection rate, there is
a corresponding swirl rpm. It turns out that for a 4 by 4
engine, you need approximately 60 milligrams of fuel at full
load and you will find that if you multiply the fuel injection
37
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rate times the time for one air swirl-, in all cases this will
turn out to be 60 milligrams.
The thing that's important about this
slide is that it shows that, in order to cover this fairly
modest range of swirl speeds or correspondingly engine speeds
with a single nozzle or a single-hole nozzle, a constant area,
a great difference in injection pressure is required over the
range that we need and this is, as I pointed out earlier, one
of the reasons that we say that extremely accurate control of
fuel injection will probably be needed for open chamber
stratified charge engines of the type that burn the mixture
substantially as soon as it is formed. We see this as a very
difficult problem, since dribbling type of flow and secondary
injection probably cannot be tolerated in this kind of an
engine. This slide also shows some of our data for the rate
of injection as a function of pressure, and it conforms
pretty well to what the theory says it should.
Okay. If I could have the next slide,
please. This is simply another injection condition of shorter
duration. The reason that this is included in here is we do
have a high-speed movie of fuel injection into the bomb under
conditions where the air is swirling, the bomb pressure is
well, it's over a hundred psi, but we are at room temperature.
38
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Now, we are not going to be able to
show that as part of the presentation this morning, but if
there is an interest in seeing the fact that we have our
experiments set up and seeing where the fuel goes in the bomb,
we can show this at iunchtime, if there is some interest.
I would like to go now to slide No. 19,
which is the next, the one after this, and talk briefly i>out
our divided chamber study. These slides are pretty much
self-explanatory, and I think you will notice that there are
quite a few areas of similarity between the two bomb studies,
the open chamber and the divided chamber.
Go on to the next one, please, and
the next one shows a schematic of what the divided chamber
bomb looks like. I think you will notice here that it is quite
similar in concept to our (inaudible) chamber bomb and there
are several areas of similarity.
And the next slide okay, -these show
the variables that can be studied in the divided chamber
experiment. Geometric variables include the ratio of the two
volumes of the chambers, include the ratio of the throat area
between the chambers to the volumes. Stoichiometry is of
considerable importance, since there are two chambers and
two different fuel ratios involved in this thing, and their
39
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ratio is probably quite important to the combustion
phenomena, and the next slide shows that there is an engine
study planned that's somewhat further down the road
to correlate what's learned in this divided chamber experiment.
As I say, we do have a high-speed
movie of -- not of combustion, but of fuel injection into our
open chamber bcmb and we'll be happy to show that possibly
during lunch, if there is any interest in that.
VOICE: How long does it last?
MR. BURGEN: Well, we are not set up
to do it right at the moment.
VOICE: Oh, okay.
MR. BURGEN: But we can show this if
there is some interest.
Thank you.
DR. BELDING: Are there any questions?
I don't see any hands. I don't see any people.
VOICE: I have a question, Steve. How
do you propose to characterize the turbulence?
MR. BURGEN: Well, we do plan some
hot wire anemometer measurements. That's one of the nice
things about the high-speed movie of supply injection. It
shows pretty well where the fuel goes and it shows that we
40
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do have essentially solid-body rotation in the bomb, but we
do plan some hot wire anemometry to back that up.
There is a possibility that some time
in the future we might use some laser techniques to determine
velocity and species concentration, but these are things that
are not developed at this time. Actually, developing them
would be a project in itself, but having the two quartz
windows, it might be possible to do that at some time in the
future.
MR. MOSES: Clint Moses .from Southwest
Research. Two things: one, did you say you had not done any
combustion?
MR. BURGEN: Well, we have achieved
combustion in the bomb but not reliably and not on film. We
are I think that demonstrates pretty well what we need to
learn in this case: How do you burn a spray?
MR. MOSES: The other question is: Are
you taking into any consideration either toroidal swirl or
the small-scale turbulence
MR. BURGEN: Well
MR. MOSES: which is known to be
quite important in the air field (inaudible) rates?
MR. BURGEN: We believe that, frankly,
41
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that the toroidal motion simply does not exist in engines.
The recent data pretty confirms this. I'm referring specifically
to a 1974 Institution of Mechanical Engineers paper which has
looked into this quite extensively, using hot wire anemometers
in a motored engine. So there are some disclaimers, I guess
I have to add, to that, but, no, we are not considering any
kind of toroidal motion because we don't think it's there in
an engine.
Secondary flow certainly, there is
some in an engine and there is some in the bomb.. Whether or
not they are comparable, we are not in too good a position
to say, but you are right. This is one of the places where
our experiment may deviate fromvhat happens in reality.
We just don't know about secondary flow.
DR. BELDING: In the back.
VOICE: (inaudible) How do you
how, where and when do you intend to do your chemical sampling?
MR. BURGEN: Well, the only chemical
sampling we plan at this time is hydrocarbons, homogeneous
hydrocarbons, after combustion. After the combustion event,
the fan keeps going, so we assume that we get essentially a
homogeneous mixture in the bomb. Now, there may be some
reaction of hydrocarbons after combustion. We are not really
42
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looking too much into emission formation at this time. We
are interested more in the combustion process for the -- how
you initiate combustion, how you can get combustion to occur
reliably. We think that hydrocarbon emissions or hydrocarbon
concentration in the bomb will tell us whether or not we have
burned all the fuel, but we are just going to pump it out and
measure it- I mean, we are not we recognize that this
isn't a real sophisticated way to look at hydrocarbon formation,
but that's our plan at the moment.
VOICE: (inaudible)., Cornell University.
How do you plan to interpret your data you obtain with the
ion probes?
MR. BURGEN: That, I will have to defer
to is there someone else here who would want to handle that
one? I'm not in a position to handle that one. You are
talking now about the divided chamber study, which I might
add that this is really only at the consideration stage. There
is no equipment built for this. I suppose that the ion probe
will tellyDU where the flame is, as a function of time, but
I honestly don't know what's envisioned for that data.
Anybody else in the audience from
Michigan want to try to handle that one?
VOICE: What was the specific question?
43
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I didn't get the question.
VOICE: The question was: How do you
plan to interpret the data you obtain through the ion probes?
MR. BURGEN: This is in the divided
chamber bomb.
VOICE: Is Patterson here?
VOICE: Yes. Say as best we can.
VOICE: We are in a thinking stage on
much of this and we have not thought this all through.
MR. MOYER: Dave Moyer from Ford.
What ignition system did you use with this and have you any
provision for alteration from a standard ignition system?
MR. BURGEN: Yes. We developed a
capacitor discharge type of system within our laboratory that
allows us to vary the total energy, the duration of spark,
the number of spark strikes. I can't really give you speci-
fications on this system, but we believe that it is it
does provide very variable spark characteristics. I can send
you some more information on that if you like, but I don't
have it right here.
VOICE: Is it realistic to keep the
fan going all through the combustion process, or do you turn
it off before you start an injection?
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MR. BURGEN: Wfell, we can't really stop
it. Its inertia would be great enough that -- I suppose we
could put a brake on it or something, but well, see, the
thing to consider is that the entire combustion process
occurs in one revolution of the fan or less, and we don't
believe that the fan, as such, has much to do with combustion.
It just gets the air going and we hope it stays out of the way.
As far as shopping it before combustion, I don't see what
advantage that would have, really.
VOICE: Is the entire combustion process
in one revolution of the fan, 25,000 rpm?
MR. BURGEN: Right, right. Well, of
course, it varies depending on what load and speed you are
simulating, but in an open chamber engine of this type, the
combustion always occurs in one revolution or less.
Well, that now, in terms of crank-
shaft revolutions, that's you know, that's only a few
degrees of crankshaft revolution, but it's about one swirl
of the air.
DR. BELDING: One additional little
tidbit that I might throw in is that when we accept proposals,
whether they be solicited or unsolicited, we try to plan for
multi-year contracts. However, we only fund one year at a time
45
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and at the end of that first year we reconsider and sometimes
a contract hasn't performed the way we want it to and we
don't continue it. We are a hard-nosed organization. We are
not like the old NSF. We try to industrialize universities,
is the best way I think I can put it.
The next speaker is from Princeton
University, the "eastern combustion world," and Dr. Fred Bracco
will present his story on Multi-Fuel Optimal Stratification
in Spark-Ignition Engines.
Fred?
MR.BRACCO Well, I come from the
Gugenheim Laboratories of Princeton University, and this
laboratory has been involved in the combustion research
for over 20 years and there are some rather well-known
graduates from this course. Sawyer is one of them, Miller,
others and so forth, and in early 1970 (inaudible) got very
puzzled by the difficulty of the combustion problem or the
combustion processes in the engines that we are talking about
today, stratified charge engines, and any other type of
engines. We saw, for example, in direct injection of
stratified charge engines, we saw a process of formation of
a spray, which is called condensation. We saw process of
(inaudible) of a thick spray, a droplet; the process of
46
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turbulent mixing and reacting with chemical kinetics and
heat transfer, all of which being unsteady and three
dimensional, and we thought a challenge to optimize or even
to make sense out of this very complex process was almost
overwhelming, and we couldn't understand how one could
optimize or even evaluate a given engine just by trial and
error procedures. It looked to me like some guidelines, some
detail models were necessary in order to twe some idea of
where to go in (inaudible) so we stopped using these models
and we made some progress since then. I have some documents
here if you want to take a look at them.
The main goal of these efforts in model-
ing, detailed modeling, that is (inaudible) vas twofold. On
one hand, it was to come up with ways of evaluating designs
before long trial and error procedures are undertaken and,
second, and very important, was to complement our regular
work with the development work of specific engines.
I am very pleased to say that for two
years now, at the end of the second year, I have been working
with Curtiss-WrightCorporation of New Jersey, in helping them
develop their direct injection stratified charge engine.
They have paid for this research directly from Curtiss-Wright
money so they must be getting something. Otherwise, ..they
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wouldn't keep paying for it.
Essentially, what we do, we have
detailed models for the engine that they are working on.
We studied their results. They take flame measurements data,
pressure measurements data, besides the usual, specific fuel
consumption, and all of this and we analyzed this data and we
come back with interpretation of why, for example, the engine
was misfiring and very lean or why it was not operating on the
very rich side and we come out with specific suggestions on
how to modify the injection system, the timing, in order to
improve the engine, and we have gone throuqh this process for
two years with some degree of success. Otherwise, we still
wouldn't be in the business.
Now, nore recently we at by the
way, the previous speaker mentioned that he thinks that
probably the injection system in direct injection stratified
charge engine has to be controlled more precisely than in the
diesel engine. Well, one result of all these efforts that I
mentioned is that I know exactly why. I have two specific
reasons that I can discuss with some of you why it probably
takes better control of the fuel injection. It definitely
takes better control of the fuel injection for two very
specific reasons, and when you hear them you will recognize
48
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them as being obvious.. Now, these causes are not found in a
trial and error procedure, but by detailed studies of the
processes.
Now, more recently I have had the
pleasure of getting some support from NSF to apply the same
theoretical experimental effort to a reciprocating engine.
I selected the open chamber stratified charge engine because
I think the open chamber is potentially a better engine
because it has less surface-to-volume ratio than the divided
chamber, potentially. On the other hand, it requires a more
accurate control because in the divided chamber you rely on
the division of the chambers to separate the rich from the
lean mixtures. In the open chamber, you must rely on the
control of the injection and the combustion process to obtain
that, but ultimately there is a lower surface-to-volume ratio
and is a potentially better engine. So we concentrate oh the
direct injection stratified charge engine and we have the
single-cylinder engine and the goal is to run this engine,
take the same type of measurements that Curtiss-Wright has
been taking, produce the model and (inaudible) from the
engine data and the model.
Now, the first item of selection was
the I mention various processes that influence the
49
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combustion. The first one was the condensation. I am very
glad to see that my research, my thinking is going along the
same thinking of the previous speakers, without having any
communication with them. Due to the fact that the control of
the injection system has to be so precise in the direct
injection stratified charge engine, one cannot put up with
the irregularity of the (inaudible) bomb or the diesel system
injection which is often used in development of direct
injection stratified charge engine systems like (inaudible)
and even Curtiss-Wright engine.
So the first thing to do was to generate,
to build a system which produces high hydrostatic pressure
with no hydraulic waves whatsoever. We have built a system
which has some similarity to this system discussed previously,
whereby we generate up to 20,000 psi of hydrostatic pressure.
There is no motion of anything, just statis pressure, whereby
the injection system is completely under control.
The second element is to study each
and all the possible ways of atomizing the fuel. Most of the
atomizers that are used are (inaudible) atomizers, coming
again from the diesel engine, but these are not the only
one.
Well, the (inaudible) jets are other
50
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forms of atomizers which present specific advantage in direct
application to the direct injection stratified charge engine,
but one must have models (inaudible) to evaluate (inaudible).
So the next step is to be the selection
of various type of injection systems, and the third step I
mentioned, mixing and turbulence. The shape of the chamber --
swirl is part of it -- has a lot to do with the mixing and the
turbulence level, so the third step to select the design of
chamber. One can have the team chamber lite the Texaco style
or one can have the (inaudible) system like the (inaudible).
We are going to investigate both
because we don't have enough information to select (inaudible).
So, in conclusion, we have already
developed the high-pressure system with the needle up to
20,000 of static pressure. .We have selected several formal
injection systems. We te/e selected two chamber configurations,
both of which are open chamber, but one is a team and the
other is (inaudible).
We have some criterion to distinguish
between importance, for example, of swirl and turbulence in
injection. The criterion is you must compare the velocity
of injection with the velocity of.swirl, with the velocity
produced by the flame -- that was not mentioned -- in
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combustion itself, and this is the velocity in the flame,
which is the same amount thd: is the velocity of the turbine
or the3tfirl, and it is the same order of the injection velocity.
Depending on which one of these velocities is greater will
determine which one of the three processes control (inaudible).
So we have sdected various ranges within
this broad field of choice and the goal is to optimize by
(inaudible) experimental problems 'similar to the one we have
been engaged with at Curtiss-Wright for two years.
Do you have to put emphasis on the
injection system? Do you have to put emphasis on the swirl
system? Do you have to put emphasis on the turbulence system?
Do you have to put. emphasis on chemical kinetics and (inaudible) ?
Well, there is no answer to this and
I don't think trial and error is going to deliver the answer
at this point. So that's the type of research we are in now.
DR. BELDING: Any questions? Yes?
DR. M IRS ICY: Bill Mirsky, EPA and
University of Michigan. In your model, you have taken into
account the characteristics of the spray with regard to drop
size, drop size distribution.
DR. BRACCO: Yes, as well as we can.
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DR. MIRSKY: po yOU have any way of
experimentally verifying your model with regard to this
effect?
DR. BRACCO: Yes, there are two ways.
One way is to verify (inaudible) outside the combustion
chamber. In other words, you spray into a bomb type with
high pressure, if you want, gas and you compare the character-
istic of this spray under this conditions. You have some
evidence (inaudible) may not be (inaudible). Okay?
DR. MIRSKY: Do you make a measurement
of drop size or do you just look at the envelope of the spray?
DR. BRACCO: We make very careful
measurements of thedrop size, velocity and distribution, as
well as spray distribution, but this is another phase of the
project which I will rarely mention at all here.
The fact is that atomization, chemical
atomization (inaudible), turbulent mixing and chemical
kinetics are each one fields of their own, which is (inaudible)
and is the type of phenomena that is essential (inaudible)
and anytime models can be produced to make best use of what
is available (inaudible).
DR. BELDING: I think that this is a
very sensitive and critical process in the combustion process
53
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that very few people are looking at, detailed
DR. BRACCQ: That: was the point I was
trying to convey this morning, that while trial and error
procedure of specific designs are most welcome and imaginative
thinkers can come to very clever solutions, somebody has to
take a slower, if you will, methodical look at all these
processes as well as can be possibly done today.
DR. BELDING: Anybody else?
Well, the next speaker happens to be
from a not so well known university, Princeton again.
Irv Glassman is the principal investigator. However, Irv
had some family problems and couldn't be here, but his able
stand-in is Fred Dryer and he is going to talk about
Fundamental Combustion Studies-of Emulsified Fuels.
DR. DRYER: I might mention that there
are three people associated with the program that John has
mentioned, the combustion of emulsified fuels, and we are
looking primarily at their application in terms of diesel
combustion. However, there are some very interesting poten-
tial benefits that can be obtained from the possible use of
emulsions in other systems such as (inaudible) and also
possibly in the spark ignition engine. The other two people
associated with the program besides myself, as John mentioned,
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is Irv Glassman and another research staff member, Dave Negli.
I would also mention a number of other
programs in which our section of the Guggenheim Laboratory is
involved which really contribute all to this fundamental
regime that Fred Bracco spoke of earlier, this idea of spray
formation vaporization, mixing and chemical kinetics, as
fundamental building blocks that are necessary really to pro-
duce analytical models that do not give you finite details of
the process, but guidelines in your experimental development
or prototype development of these devices.
Let me first address myself to the
problem of emulsified fuel combustion. We had a fortunate
circumstance this summer to participate in a summer study
sponsored by the American Physical Society, which was held
at Princeton during July, and, I show you a draft of the
report of that summer workshop which is presently in review
at Sandia. It was under the direction of a third of that
study was under the direction of Daniel Hartley at Sandia
Research, and our part of the study investigated the role of
physics in combustion and it was addressed primarily to the
physics community, trying to point out to them areas in which
they could not contribute to the combustion area, using our
own presently available expertise.
55
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One of the areas of that report was to
do a survey of present understanding of the combustion of
emulsified fuels. I am sure all of you have seen some recent
articles that have appeared in a number of popular journals,
such as Science or Popular Mechanics, as such, to the effect
that a man by the name of Mr. Walter, Professor Walter Eubank
at the University of Oklahoma, has been involved in trying to
develop an emulsion of gasoline and water or alcohol and water
which would be stable and could be used in prototype combustion
carburetion systems.
There is another fellow by the name of
Mr. Cottell at Tymponic Corporation, which is trying to who
is trying to develop ultrasonic types of emulsified systems.
There is a basLc difference between
these two types of systems and it has to do with the quality
of emulsions produced and this quality of emulsions produced
has a lot to do with what emulsions do for you in terms of
potential benefits and their uses.
Now, Mr. Eubank would point out to you
that the injection of water into the internal combustion engine
is not a new field by any means. It's been investigated since
the middle 1930's, first as a successful approach to anti-
knock and secondly as an internal coolant.
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Now, the third reason for usinq an
emulsion has nothing to do with those two areas. It has to
do with enhanced vaporization. It's a process that has been
coined by the Russians as microexplosions and the Russians,
at present, are the only ones that have done any fundamental
research cnthe problem whatsoever. It was done in late 19 59
and reported and translated by NASA in 19 65. The workers
involved were, fellows by the name of Ivanov and [Jefedov,
and they did studies of suspended single droplets of emulsified
fuels. They dealt mainly with mazute, which is a crude oil
of the same constituency as Bunker C, kerosene and benzene.
These investigators showed that they could significantly
change the ignition and vaporization characteristics of
single suspended droplets by first emulsifying these fuels
witii water. They explained this process by the fact that the
water internal to the primary droplet, which was a microdroplet
in suspension, went through a vaporization process long before
the fuel reached an ignition occurrence, and, therefore, pro-
duced either surface distortion or actual rupture and secondary
vaporization of the primary droplet.
Why would this process be of interest?
In diesel combustion, there are really two approaches to the
present problem of N0X smoke and performance problems in that
57
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system. They all have to do with the heterogeneity of the
combustion and the heterogeneity can either exist as possible
gaseous pocket distributions in the chamber or it may be
even heterogeneity in the liquid phase.
Now, the question is: What can be done
about that? The present approaches are to do things in terms
of adding circulation to the systems or to do things in terms
of the injection. The question arises of what happens if one
does something in terms of abusing emulsions as the material
to produce a secondary vaporization to reduce the hetero-
geneity? Now, that question has been approached by two
investigators at Cummins Engine Company, and they did one
prototype study on diesels and came to the conclusion that
emulsions were actually detractive in their interest as far
as diesels are concerned and this is why I say there is a
basic difference between using emulsions which are used for
storage and emulsions which are produced ultrasonically and
has to do with the quality of emulsion. If the quality of
emulsion is such that you do not produce the microdispersion
that I referred to earlier, you are not going to get the
enhanced vaporization and you are going to get some ignition
problems and this is exactly what Wulfhorst and Valdemanis
found on the Cummins Engine studies.
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We have proposed to back off and we
want to look at just the fundamental combustion properties
of emulsions. Does the enhanced vaporization process
actually occur? And there isn't really more than limited
data available from the Russian work. If it does occur/
what quality of emulsions are necessary for its occurrence?
We proposed a number of studies to
investigate this fundamental problem and the first study has
to do with repeating the initial Russian \ork, suspending-
filament work, but at pressures that are more similar to those
occurring in the internal combustion systems, both in internal
compression ignition engines and we also want to look at the
characteristics that will be available at pressures such as
those observed in gas turbines.
Secondly, we want to do some pre-
droplet studies, ala the Keston approach, which is presently
being developed to produce free droplets in a 20 to 80 micron
area, which can be studied by cinematography, and this program
is under the direction of Art Keston at UARL, United Research
Laboratories .
We want to apply this approach to
emulsified fuels and again make a comparison of the vapori-
zation aid combustion characteristics of fuel and emulsified
59
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fuels.
Obviously there can be no direct extension of droplet observations
to diesel spray combustion such as that which occurs in diesels, so
comparative fundamental spray studies on multi-component and emulsified
fuels are of importance. Finally, to complete this study, single
cylinder diesel work will be necessary to evaluate performance and
emission characteristics.
As with most of John's programs described here today, this work was
only very recently funded (July 1, 1974). At present we have completed
a literature survey of available technology of emulsified fuel combustion
and have found that which exists is poorly documented and in most cases
inadequate to develop any clear understanding. To our knowledge tnere are
at present no current programs on diesel applications and only very limited
programs on spark ignition engines (Ewbank, Cottell). Most interest is
presently directed toward furnace applications (Cottell) where some evi-
dence exists that particulate production and excess air requirements are
substantially improved. Dr. Hall at EPA Research Triangle Park is current-
ly evaluating both a French mechanical system and the Cottell device on
residential size furnaces. The fundamental research area is even more
scant with the Russian and our porposed work representing the entire area.
Since attendees of this conference are greatly concerned in methanol
and its use as an alternative fuel, let me mention in passing that methanol
is a very good alternative to water for forming emulsions with typical
hydrocarbon fuels. Additions of small amounts of water to methanol renders
it insoluble in conventional fuels, and this has been a major difficulty
in developing high concentration methanol fuel solutions. Methanol fuel
emulsions should also produce the secondary vaporization process described
earlier.
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There has been considerable research effort devoted to the development
of methanol as an alternative fuel. Yet I do not know of any current or
past studies using methanol emulsions rather than solutions. In fact
while much systems research on neet and methyl fuel blends is underway,
I know of no basic chemical information on what happens when methanol
combustion occurs.
There are no data on the rate of methanol pyrolysis and oxidation,
the rate of formation of intermediate products or what those intermediate
products might be. There are some interesting results which are observed
in spark ignition combustion that suggest the intermediate species, the
emissions formed are much more complex than one would suspect from the
simplicity of the compound. We are presently studying these fundamental
aspects of methanol pyrolysis and oxidation in a unique type of research
instrument called a turbulent flow reactor. It allows us to measure
chemical concentration, and concentration time gradients of stable reac-
tants products and intermediates as functions of reaction time. The
temperature range 1000-1200K. and reaction times we can observe are incom-
patible with other chemical kinetic methods such as static reactors or
shock tubes. It should be pointed out that this range of variables is
of great interest in terms of hydrocarbon emissions in internal combustion
engines.
Using this same research tool we have also been studying the high,
temperature chemical kinetics of hydrocarbon fuels in the alkane series.
There are very limited high temperature data on the reactions of alkanes
more complex than methane and ethane, and most experimental work has attempted
to measure "ignition delay" parameters rather than actual chemistry. The
presently accepted theory of how these hydrocarbons are oxidized suggests
that hydroxyl radicals are of major importance to the kinetic mechanisms,
and that energy release is proportional to initial fuel disappearance. We
-------
are presently involved in experimental studies of paraffin species through
hexane, and cursory results suggest that at flow reactor temperatures
these postulates are incorrect. We are attempting to formulate semi-
global models which are commensurate with these more detailed experi-
mental data. Such models are of importance to predicting energy release
rate and emission trends in system analytical models.
In summary, our laboratory is primarily involved in fundamental com-
bustion research in several areas where more understanding is needed to
improve energy conversion efficiency and emissions from combustion devices
using conventional and alternative liquid hydrocarbon fuels. Thank you.
DR. BELDING: Questions? My goodness. Everybody must be getting
tired. Okay.
Well, the last speaker this morning, by alphabet only, is Dr.
Naeim Henein from Wayne State University and he is going to talk about
flame propagation and auto ignition of alcohol-petroleum air mixtures.
DR. HENEIN: I am not going to take a long time in my presentation be-
cause everybody is kind of tired now.
As John mentioned, our purpose in this Study is to study the flame
propagation (inaudible) methanol,
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petroleum, benzol mixtures.
This work started at Wayne State
University in January of '74 and the original idea of using
methanol was made by Dean Stynes. He is a chemical
engineer and he said, "You fellows, you are wasting petroleum
products. You shouldn't use petroleum in engines, but you
should be keyed to petroleum products for petro-chemical
industry and try to find something else which is less
expensive to produce."
The work started in January and it was
funded by the School and, as of July 1st, this work has been
sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
Professor Simbles here and myself and
three graduate and two undergraduate students are working on
this project at the present time. The work includes both
theoretical and experimental parts. Let me start with the
experimental.
The experimental part is on a CFR
spark-ignited engine. This engine is completely instrumented.
We measure the air flow, fuel flow, pressure (inaudible) power
output, different emissions, including CO, CO2, O2, NO, NO2/
hydrocarbons, by using both heated f.i.d. and unheated f.i.d.
In addition, we measure the flame speed
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in the combustion chamber by using ionization probes.
At present, all the sjuipment and the instruments are debugged,
operating, and we are starting to get some experiments. The
electronic circuits for the ionization probes are complete
now and we are trying to put many of these probes in the
cylinder head in order to measure the location of flame at
different parts of the cycle.
The third report, in addition to the
standard studies on chemical equilibrium, electric field
temperatures, we are we would try to correlate the flame
speed as a function of the mixture pressure and its (inaudible)
temperature and also we get into the correlation, the fuel-
air ratio or equivalency ratio and flame speed. Hopefully,
instead of engine speed, if we can put in parameters which
would indicate the velocity, for example (inaudible) numoer,
or something like this, but at present we can't put the
engine speed as one of the parameters.
The work would be done on mixtures
of methanol and indolene, which is the standard fuel for EPA
emission tests. Different ratios would be used from zero
methanol up to 100 percent. For this, we base to change the
carburetion of the engine to allow the use of hundred percent
methanol. Hopefully, we would produce some equations which
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can give the flame velocity in an engine under different,
varied conditions of pressures, temperatures and speeds, and
we feel that this basic data is needed for any computer
simulation in the future.
You find many models published about
NO formation in spark-ignition engines and if you look at these
folders you will find that there is one basic piece of informa-
tion which is missing and that is the flame speed.
I can say that the accuracy of these
models depends on the accuracy of the flame speed (inaudible)
under the engine-running condition. If you look into the
literature, unfortunately, you won't find this basic piece
of information which we are (inaudible).
In addition to this program, we have
other programs which are supporting this activity and which
will be of interest to some of you based on what I heard from
the previous speakers. At present, we have an extensive
program sponsored by the U;S. Army Tank Command, to study the
properties of different injection systems.
Here we have the jet'air pump and we
have been studying the system for about three years now and
we know all its pitfalls, all of its drawbacks.
We have another program v/hich is on the
65
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unit injector, and this is a really challenging piece of equip-
ment on (inaudible) and finding what's going on in the air
injector. We spent about one year trying to understand the
processes which are (inaudible) in this injector.
We also have a program on the Cummins
PT system. The purpose of this injection system studies is
for diagnostic purposes, but before you diagnose a (inaudible),
you have to understand the processes which are taking place
in the (inaudible) system very well.
In addition to this injection system
program, we have another program on the auto ignition
properties of fuels and this is done on two types of engines.
The first one is the CFR compression ignition engine, which
is (inaudible) engine used to study the cetane (inaudible)
fuel.
The other engine is an Army single-
crylinder research engine (inaudible) engine, and these two
programs are running simultaneously and we are relating simple
numbers of fuels to the ignition delay of these fuels and
we are trying to find out what is the meaning of a cetane
number. Does it really mean anything? Particularly if you
extrapolate the cetane scale, you find that nonlinear at low
cetane when you use low cetane number fuels (inaudible)
66
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you will find that in many cases you have to use low cetane
fuels in diesel engines. For example, in many cases, you may
need to use gasoline in a diesel engine. Gasoline is a very
low cetane number fuel.
Now we are trying to find out what's
wrong with the cetane scale at its low edge or at the
low part of the scale, from zero up to about 30 or 3 5 this
scale is nonlinear. So the problem on auto ignition properties
of fuels would help us in the future, hopefully, to study the
auto ignition properties of future fuels.
In addition to these activities on
single combustion engines, whether spark ignition or compres-
sion ignition engines, we have a program on continuous
combustion systems which we started about a year ago and
hopefully which will use in the future alcohol-petroleum
mixtures, to study their combustion characteristics in
continuous combustion systems at different pressures and
temperatures.
This concludes my presentation.
DR. BELDING: Any questions?
MR. BARR: Fred Barr, Princeton
University. I would like to comment on the addition of
methanol to other petroleums, the petroleums other than
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gasoline, and even to the mixture of methanol and gasoline
above 15 percent.
The first thing one realizes when one
adds methanol to something like a general kerosene product
is that it is insoluble to about a half a percent and you find
the same thing when you add methanol to gasoline in concentra-
tions slightly above 15 percent and you find also that if
there are small concentrations of water in the methanol, it
becomes insoluble at much lower percentages.
I would like to offer to you the
possibility of using methanol as an additive to these fuels
in emulsion form. I would also like to suggest to you that
the same characteristics of using water-fuel emulsions can be
realized with methanol-fuel emulsions with some benefits
possibly in the chemistry. Methanol has a boiling point
it's about half that of water heat of vaporization is about
half that of water and, therefore, consumes less energy in
its vaporization and also vaporizes at lower temperature.
Therefore, it should produce the same enhanced vaporization
as much more at much better characteristics.
We find that in this form you can also
probably produce dispersions of methanol in the petroleum
with much smaller microdropping because of the differential
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in surface tension.
MR. HENEIN: Let me add here we are
not concerned with mixing of methanol and petroleum. In fact,
we mixed them fresh for experiment, so we don't get into this
separation problem where you have a mixture of alcohols and
petroleums sitting there for some time. So we always use a
fresh mixture. In fact, we made an experiment, in order to
study the separation problem. We have two glass containers
in which we put different percentages of alcohols and
petroleum. If you keep these closed, you won't find the
separation and we have been studying in the lab, because we
have many objections from about and we were scared
about the separation, of course. Separation would cause
misfiring and then we may find that this is misfiring from
methanol and it is from water, you see.
MR. BARR: I would like to point out
to you that a static test of mixing these things is probably
not very, very good in the sense of how you are using these
things. You are putting these things under tremendous
dynamic sheer forces in the pumping process into the compres-
sion ignition engine or into a spark ignition even in.an
injection system on a spark ignition, fuel injection, and you
will find out that those dynamic sheer forces produce separation
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in these mixtures. That has been also shown in terms of high
internal phase emulsions which the Army studied at Catell
Research.
MR. HENEIN: Let me add, all our
studies now are related to gasoline engine or spark ignition,
so we pre-mix them without imposing them to any sheer stress,
so maybe later on, if we study auto ignition properties in
diesel engines, we get into the scope and hopefully by then
we'll have a solution for it that we can use it.
DR. BELDING: Fred?
VOICE: In your presentation, you say
that all available models need flame speed data. That is
incorrect. Models have been available since 1970 which do
not need flame speed data (inaudible). It's true that flame
speed data are always useful. We take them, too, but they
are not needed.
MR. HENEIN: Let me ask, are, these
models for engines with which there is a flame propagating
VOICE: (inaudible)
MR. HENEIN: How will you determine
the maximal pressure and temperature in the cycle without
knowing the flame speed?
VOICE: By solving the conservation
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equation.
MR. HENEIM: Well
VOICE: (inaudible)
MR. HENEIN: Conservation equation
is an (inaudible) equation or is a lock system --
VOICE: (inaudible) If you go bach
to the (inaudible) conservation, you can solve for the
composition, the (inaudible) in space and time.
MR.HEiJEIN: How will you get the rate
of heat released by flame propagation without knowing the
flame speed?
VOICE: Well, can you think of your
conservation equations?
MR. HENEIN: oh, yes.
VOICE: (inaudible) are part of the
input which, when coupled with e/erything else, the scale of
intensity of the difference, the heat transfer, okay, the
(inaudible), all these functions
VOICE: I, for one, would like to
support your work and I think it is important to measure the
flame speeds because we are about to report some work, burning
rnethanol-gasoline blends up to 30 percent in an Exxon engine
and we found this was the one piece of information we would
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like to have, and I would like to talk to you later to show
you that we have some indications of what does happen to
flame speed.
DR. BELDING: Is there one more quick
question and then 1 Fred, you and Naeim can talk --
VOICE: (inaudible). I didn't say
that flame data are not useful. We take them. They are very
useful.
MR. HENEIN: Well, this is the
impression I got, that flame speeds are
VOICE: No, you made a statement that
flame propagation data (inaudible).
DR. BELDING: Let's take a ten-minute
break c.nd be back
The session from 11 o'clock to 12
o'clock, is on University Research on Methanol, Methanol-Gaaoline
Blends. Before we get to our three speakers, Dr. Adt
Mr. Pefley and Dr. Johnson, I would like to have Mr. Jerome
Hinkle from the Environmental Protection Agency give a very
brief, five-minute overview of the study which we are
sponsoring at Stanford Research Institute on the Impact of
Alternative Automotive Fuels.
Following that, Dr.Adt will describe
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a grant research program which he has with the Environmental
Protection Agency on methanol-gasoline blend research.
Mr. Richard Pefley from the University of Santa Clara will
describe previous work which he has done on methanol, and
Dr. Richard Johnson from the University of Missouri will
describe a methanol-gasoline blend university grant research
program which he has with the Department of Transportation.
Briefly, Dr. Adt is at the University
of Miami. He has his Ph.D., has a Doctor of Science from
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Currently, he
is Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the
University of Miami.
Mr. Richard Pefley, from the University
of Santa Clara, has his Bachelor's degree from Case Institute
of Technology, his Master's degree from Stanford University.
He is Professor and Department Chairman of the Mechanical
Engineering Department at the University of Santa Clara.
Dr. Richard Johnson, from the University
of Missouri, Rolla, has his B.A. from the University of
Missouri, his M.A. from the University of Missouri, and his
Ph.D. from the University of Iowa.
Mr. Hinkle?
I guess he is on at 1:30 pm.
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DR. ATT: We have just started, like
a number of other people, on a program for the Environmental
Protection Agency and we have a four-task program which is
involved with characterizing methanol-gasoline blends as an
automotive fuel, and I'll describe each- of the tasks first
and then in a little more detail into what we are going to
do in each of these tasks.
The first task is in three parts and
the first part is an assessment of the past and current
studies of performance, emissions and practical use
characteristics of methanol and methanol-gasoline blends.
The second part of the first tas.k is identification of
performance, emission and practical use characteristics
which are missing from the current technology, and also
included will be a program we will carry out at the University
of Miami to answer some of these questions which I will go
into in a few moments.
We are also going to have, as a part
of our first task, a review of the various methods for measuring
the problemsome emission components in methanol-gasoline blends,
namely methanol and the aldehydes.
Task 2 will be experimental in nature
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and it's a determination of base line performance and
emission characteristics of a gasoline-fueled engine. I'll
describe that in a few moments.
Task 3 is determination of performance
and emission characteristics for methanol-gasoline blends and
some neat methanol tests and the fourth task is a materials
compatibility study.
Now, I would like to go over each one
of those tasks in a little more detail. The assessment we'll
carry out will cover only performance, emission and practical
use considerations that are related to on-the-vehicle. We
will not be concerned with off-vehicle problems, such as
production, off-vehicle distribution of the methanol, off-
vehicle storage of methanol-gasoline blends and so forth.
It will be strictly on the vehicle, and we feel that there
is a definite need for such an assessment because it's beer
about ten years since Professor Bolt did his very comprehensive
alcohol review.
I just hope that we come somewhere near to what he did in his
review, The review in the past was concerned mostly with
ethanol rather than methanol and consideration was for pre-
emission controlled engines.
In our updated assessment, we'll focus
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our attention on methyl alcohol and also blends of methyl
alcohol and gasoline and we'll be giving considerations
to the power plant of today with the various emission control
equipment, the effect of catalytic reactors, exhaust gas recir-
culation, and so forth. And we'll also look into applications
in more advanced power plants such as the stratified charge
engine and we'll also include the recent data regarding
exhaust emissions, including unburned methanol, aldehydes
and polynuclear aromatics found in the exhaust.
The second part of Task. 1, once we
have this assessment done, we will be in a position to
identify, as I said before, performance, emissions and
practical use considerations that are deemed important and
lacking in the current technology and also to identify a
program that we'll carry out at the University.
In this assessment, we'll also review
the various methods for measuring exhaust gas constituents.
Some of them are somewhat of a problem. For example,
unburned methanol, if you go, use a flame ionization detector,
it turns out that the response of the detector is quite a
bit lower for the methanol molecule than the other hydro-
carbon molecules and also if you use an unheated flame
ionization detector, you lose your methanol in the condenser
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trap.
Aldehydes are somewhat of a problem in
that they are quite tedious with chemical methods that are
used now, and another one that may be a problem,
we're not sure, is NO2 A lot of people report that most of
the nitric oxides are NO in the exhaust gases, but some of
the work by Adelman, for example, show that there are sub-
stantial amounts of NO2 in the exhaust. If this is the case,
we are just not sure what happens when you use a cold trap.
I know in some of the hydrogen research, where they find
significant amounts of NO2, care must be taken or they have
taken care not to use a cold trap for fear of using the NO2
in the condensed water phase. We just don't know whether
this is a problem or not, but it's something that has to be
looked into, and so that's the type of thing we'll be looking
at in that portion of the research.
After we finish that, we'll be
for base line performance and emission character-
istics of a gasoline-fueled engine. We have rather long-range
plans on what we would like to do, looking at alternate fuels.
We have looked at hydrogen in the past and now we are looking
at methanol, but in order to do this we feel we have to have
a good engine, that we have got some very good base line data
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from, gasoline-type fuels against which we can make our compari-
sons- So what we have done is, we are going to be using a
multi-cylinder engine. It's a four-cylinder Pontiac engine,
but we'll be using today's cylinder head. You can change the
cylinder heads on the engine and also we'll be using today's
cam profile, so we simulate the modern engine.
As Ear as the fuel goes, we'll be
using unleaded
indolene as our reference gasoline and the type of tests
we'll be doing are steady-state engine dynamometer testing
and we'll be taking raw exhaust sampling, we'll be using the
carbon balance method to arrive at mass emissions.
After we x?et our basic data from the
gasoline engine, then we'll proceed, looking at the blends of
methanol and gasoline, and it looks like, from the literature
that, the-most optimum blend is somewhere around 15 percent.
So we'll probably be doing most of our testing around there
and we'll also do some testing with neat methanol.
The fourth task is a materials
compatibility study Tn the literature there are
reports on problems when you use methanol-gasbline
blends as far as, for example, corrosion in the gas tanks,
like the turn plating, for example, has been found to present
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somewhat of a problem. So one of the things we want to do
is take different metals that come into contact with the fuel
from the carburetor, type of metals, problems have been found
there from the fuel tank, and so forth, and do some carefully
controlled tests, carefully control the temperature, the
water content and the blend compositions so we can determine
what type of corrosion to look out for.
Also, there has been quite a bit of
published problems with regard to use of non-metals with
compatibility with the methanol and that's basically what
we'll be doing in our first year's work, and in the future
we hope to, after that's done, look at more advanced power
plants. Once we hare the .basic data from today's engine,.
then we'll go off into more advanced
power plants such as the stratified charge engine and then
we'll have something against which to compare changing engines,
Finally, after that, we would like to then
test some of the synthetic fuels maybe from coal and
so forth. Instead of using indolene, take a look and see
what effect a synthetic fuel will have on these different
aspects that we'll be studying in the first year.
So that's basically our program. Any
questions?
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VOICE: I would like to make a comment
concerning your methods for determining methanol concentrations
and aldehyde concentrations in emissions.
There is an approach to using flame
ionization which is detailed in the Environmental Science and
Technology article in the February issue 197 3 which we
developed along the lines of the nickel catalyst approach
for. analyzing carbon monoxide on flame ionization. If one
uses ruthenium as a base catalyst for that system, one finds
that you get a complete conversion of oxygenated compounds,
such as aldehydes and methanol to a saturate material which
produces a response similar to that of a paraffin. You get
a 1 to 1 correspondence between the carbon number and the
response in the item, and we have found that it works very
well for alcohol. It works very well for aldehydes above
formaldehyde; however, formaldehyde is probably the aldehyde
you are going to find is the major aldehyde in emissions.
It turns out that the conversion works very well with formal-
dehyde. However, to find a gas chromatographic column that
can separate formaldehyde from other items without some hangup
on the column is quite difficult. Sapulco Corporation of
Bellefont, Pennsylvania./ claim that they have a material that
does that now.
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I would also like to suggest to some
of the other people in the audience that this may be a much
better way to evaluate what the coal hydrocarbon emissions
are from an engine. If one is able to get a total carbon
number in terms of emissions, that might be much more realistic
in terms of hydrocarbon emissions than to (inaudible).
DR. mThere are other ways that
we for example, you can strip out -- in an f.i.d., you can
strip out the_ methanol and measure, you know, the stripped
sample and then the unstripped sample and determine your
response of the f.i.d. and that will tell you what you have.
VOICE: This is a very effective way
to use this sort of approach for hydrocarbon emissions. You
strip out the CO and CO2 in the emissions and look at just
what the total hydrocarbon emission is on a backflush and,
in fact, you can compare that with what your total hydro-
carbon reading is in hexane calibration and you will find you
have got a number that's associated with the oxygenates and
cyclo compounds that don't have paraffin response.
DR. M)T: We're also interested in
the distribution amongst the different hydrocarbons. That's
another
VOICE: You can characterize some of
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that.
DR. ADT: Yes, that's right. Thank you.
DR. BELDING: Thank you, Bob.
Our next speaker is Mr. Richard Pefley
from the University of Santa Clara.
MR. PEFLEY: Good morning.
I think some of my remarks here go back
to BEC. I'm not saying "BC" now; I'm saying BEC, which means
"Before Energy Crisis" to me and one wonders if that may not
be an important date in times to come.
If you want to hold that slide off
for just a minute our early work was supported by NAPCA
and it involved the CFR engine and we'll have a little bit
more to say about it in a slide here in a few minutes, but the
main interest was using disassociated methanol. As many of
you recognize, if you disassociate the methanol, it absorbs
energy and you are burning then, in the engine, you are burning
CO and hydrogen and that's very attractive.
Our initial interest was in a clean-
burning fuel and so our earlier work and it's published in
the literature -- addressed that issue and we ran a CFR engine
on all blend mixtures of disassociated methanol and pure
methanol and in many senses it is attractive in an emissions
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sense as a fuel.
One of the big problems, of course,
that still is unresolved is how do you effectively disassociate
the methanol? But the idea is so attractive that it needs
further pursuit and it's part of our interest.
In addition to that early work with the
CFR engine, we started in the fall of 1971 a project with the
City of Santa Clara where we engaged then to buy cars to our
specification and matched an engine to. those cars in our
laboratory and they were Plymouth Valiants, 1972, slant 6
engines, and one of them actually ran for some time on straight
gasoline and currently we are running it on blends.
The other, vehicle has never been on
anything but pure methanol. It's over two years now, 30nonths,
over 20-,000 miles in operation, and it has never had anything
but pure methanol in it and if I may have that first slide, we'll
talk a little bit about the I think you can all hear me,
can you not, and will the recorder work all right if I stand
over here?
What you are looking at here is the
blend vehicle, and if you look at the upper photograph', this
represents the ordinate. Everything is normalized in compari-
son to gasoline,, and the abscissa represents the blends of
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methanol and the upper graph represents the miles per BTU.
If you look at the energy conversion efficiency of the car,
you see in this particular vehicle up to 20 percent we found
a slowly rising efficiency. Eachpoint there, unless noted
otherwise, represents four points and the average of four
test points, so we think they are reasonably well anchored.
The curve just below that shows the miles per gallon and,
of course, because the methanol is about half the energy of
gasoline, you see that it does not hold up and so if we are
going to talk about methanol to the public, certainly we have
to talk about energy or miles per unit of energy per million
BUT's or whatever and not miles per gallon.
The lower three curves represent
emissions and I'll not take a grieat deal of time to discuss
these because this is documented in the publication, the
Methanol Conference at Ilenneker this summer. We presented
this material. It's discussed in.detail, but the general
evidence for the hydrocarbon, CO and oxides of nitrogen, are
all generally downward as you increase the percent methanol.
Now, basically what is happening, you
are leaning out the engine. The one anomaly is, you would
expect the oxides of nitrogen to rise.
Henry is going to have some more to say
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about that shortly here, but even taking into account the
fairly complex curve shape, the general trend is downward
in all three emission species and so we think that methanol
is attractive in this sense.
Let ne have the next transparency.
This is the vehicle that's never had anything but methanol
in it. It's still on the streets. It's operated by meter-
readers, typical operators in the City of Santa Clara, -and
you can see some, briefly, some comparative data between
California federal eaissicn standards ir. the lower pair of
tabulations and in the upp.er, the first was done by the
Los Angeles Air Resources Board and then we tested it in our
own labs and, as you see, the emissions from this car -- it's
equipped with a catalytic muffler, hydrocarbon catalytic
muffler, and, as you see, the emissions levels are pretty
attractive.
However, it's important to report that
at those conditions, this was in a clean air car competition
a couple of years ago, at those conditions, the operators
did not care for the car. It was sluggish in operation and
we have indicated that. In addition, other problems asso-
ciated with the pure methanol are that there is a cold start
problem and there is some -- we have encountered some fuel
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systems materials incompatibilities in the operation.
May I have the next one? This little
Gremlin is now four years on methanol, never had any part of
the fuel system changed except the fuel pump, so far as I know,
and Henry can probably verify that because Henry started out
with this thing at Stanford in a student clean air car race
back in 1970, and what is of interest here is the progressive
improvement in emissions performance and also efficiency.
This last year, it won three of the four
first places in the student clean air car competition and the
fascinating thing is that this vehicle doesn't have, I doubt,
over $100 worth of modifications on it, and so well,
actually, neither of these vehicles, the pure methanol vehicle
nor this vehicle basically what we have done is change the
jets in the carburetor, modify the spark timing, and provide
a heat source in the intake manifold in these vehicles and
this car actually has four years now and is still in very
good operational shape.
Well, just to be brief, our conclusions
from this early work are that methanol vehicles give reasonably
good performance, even when you only spend a modest amount of
money in converting them.
There are some problem areas, however,
8G
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and others have identified these as well as ourselves. Cold
start on methanol cold start is a serious problem, even at
45 degrees ambient temperature. When we say "cold start,"
why, with methanol, you find trouble at that temperature.
We also believe that the fuel -- there
is more stratification. The methanol-air mixture in the
standard carburetor manifold system has greater difficulties
than the gasoline-air mixture in being homogeneous as it enters
the cylinder, and so fuel nebulization and fuel-ai.r distribu-
tion are problems of concern.
I previously mentioned earlier materials
incompatibility. We are concerned with the aldehydes particu-
larly, and as one of the elements of proposal for ongoing
work, particularly are we concerned in the maladjusted engine.
It looks very satisfactory. At least what evidence we have
is that it is competitive with gasoline if the engine is
well-adjusted, but if you have burned valves, problems like
this, we are concerned and we like to look at that kind of
situation in greater detail before we harness the public with
such an idea.
Then, of course, the phase separation
in a blend vehicle we have encountered some problems. You
do have to watch water presence. Unless you are going to
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resort to special fuel preparations, why, you do have to
watch for the presence of water to avoid phase separations
in the gasoline-methanol blends.
Well, where do we go from here is where
I would like to wind up my comments. What we would like to
do is take a conventional engine today, a '75, '74, *75 engine,
and get a basic performance characterization of it on gasoline.
Then we would like to use our low-cost modification, best
low-cost modification based on what we now understand, and get
methanol performance with that low-cost modification for the
fuel induction system and then, thirdly, we would like to really
optimize the induction system. We have been working for some
time with a pressure wave carburetion system that we think is
far superior to conventional manifold carburetion systems
and that or something equivalent to it, we would really Like
to optimize the induction system for methanol because, as you
go back to my earlier slides here on the Gremlin, if students
and $100 modifications can produce that kind of change, it's
interesting to ask the question: What is possible if people
really turn their engineering talents to this problem?
So we would like to do that, try to
optimize an induction system as well as an ignition system and
see what kind of performance map we would get in comparison
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to gasoline, using a stock engine, so to speak.
Well, I would like to just, briefly
describe one last transparency and then I would like to
introduce Henry Adelman, who will make a few comments.
This goes back to our before our
energy crisis data. It was the CFR engine. In this case,
Henry and one of the other fellows in our laboratory wanted
to look at the disassociated methanol in the very lean region
and notice now the equivalence ratio across the abscissa and
so we are getting down here in the very lean region, particu^
larly as it relates to the oxides of nitrogen. You can see as
we come very lean, the engine continued to develop power clear
out in this region, although there was a power fade. Notice
that an equivalence ratio of about .35, the carbon monoxide
started to take off and what we have is a homogeneous mixture
in the cylinder and what we think is happening is that the
temperature dropped low enough that we are no longer reacting
the carbon monoxide and -- but in this region, notice the
Nbx production has dropped well below an order of magnitude
below its peak, and we think this is an attractive region
that should be explored further, recognizing the power fade,
the trade-off in terms of reduced N0X production is really
attractive when you run the engine on this disassociated
89
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methanol form, and now I would like to turn I assume we have
a few more minutes and I would like to turn the podium over
to Henry Adelman, who has been doing some computer studies.
We also think that, as has teen suggested earlier here, that
just brute force and awkwardness in terms of modifications
are not necessarily the only route to go. We should couple
this with the sophistication of analysis that are available to
us and Henry tes been doing some work on computer models and
I would like to turn it over to him to discuss that just briefly.
MR. ADELMAN: Thank you.
I would like to talk about some work
that we are doing for NASA-Ai-IES Research Center. It's a small
grant we started about a month ago, and it involves a combustor
model for a gas turbine engine that we will be using dis-
associated methanol, methanol, perhaps blends of these fuels,
and, comparing them with hydrocarbon fuels, probably methane
and issoctane and if we can get thermodynamic data on, say,
jet fuel, we'll compare it to jet fuel. This computer model
that we are using was developed by Roger Craig at NASA-AMES
He has been working on this for several years, and if I could
have the first slide, we have a.schematic of the combustor.
We have to make several idealizations here.
First, we assume that the fuel is in
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gaseous form. We also assume that if there is recirculation
of the burded gases into the unburned mixture, that this is
complete and instantaneous. We have taken the Pratt & Whitney
JT-8-D engine as the model. This is a schematic of that engine
The primary zone is roughly 7 1/2
centimeters long; the second zone is 35 centimeters long.
There are four stations, I believe, where secondary air is
introduced along the zone. We assume that that secondary air-
is also mixed instantaneously and uniformly in each plane.
If I could have the next slide. The
major input through this program, since it deals with the
reactions in a flowing system, are, of course, the combustion
reactions for the fuel that you are considering. Now, our
first cases are for disassociated methanol: that is, two
molecules of hydrogen to one molecule of carbon monoxide.
Here you see the 33 reactions that describe the combustion
of the hydrogen CO system and the formation of oxltfes of
nitrogen. These have to be input into the program.
One of the difficulties is coming up
with the correct reaction scheme. Other informstin that has
to be put into the program are the former great constants for
each reaction. The program has thermodynamic data to calculate
the reverse reactions from the equilibrium constants. That,
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of course, is another area of uncertainty.
A lot of these reactions have an
uncertainty of plus or minus 50 percent. However, Roger
Craig has done considerable work on the use of hydrogen
diluted with argon. He has compared his results with work
that NASA-Lewis has done on hydrogen fuel turbine combustors
and is very confident in the operations program.
If I could have the next slide, here
we see this is a case where the primary zone is operated
fuel lean, .8. The overall air-fuel or equivalence ratio for
the turbine is .25 for all cases I'll consider here.
What we see here is, for this case,
from zero to 1 centimeters there is what you might call
induction period, where some of the free radicals are being
formed. I should mention that there is a recirculation of
burned products and this is necessary because the air leaves
the compressor at 700 degrees K. In actuality, before combus-
tion starts in the Pratt & Whitney turbine, the air-fuel is
raised to a thousand degrees K, which means that some of the
burned products must be recirculated through heat, the
incoming mixture. What we found is that if yourecirculate
inert products to bring the incoming mixture up to a thousand
degrees K, that it generally has an induction time that is so
92
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long that it won't even burn in the primary zone. Now, if
you also include the free radicals, then the induction time is
shortened and, indeed, compares very well with the experiment.
So what we have here, and it unfortunately doesn't show up
too well, is that some of the free radicals, such as 0, H,
and OH, are recirculated at levels of about 10 to the minus 4
and they don't show up here but they drop very, very rapidly
to 10 to the minus 7 levels. Then, of course, they rise,
overshoot equilibrium considerably in the flame region, and
then come back, down to post-flame equilibrium values.
So there is quite a flurry of activity
that at 1 centimeter, which represents the flame zone.
However, a few curves stand out here. For example, this
and this, and even this one, but these two in particular
have time constants, of course, that are orders of magnitude
longer than the time constants for the HO reactions and, of
course, these are the oxides of nitrogen. This is NO2 and
this is NO and if we can have the next slide we'll see, in a
little more detail, the combustion zone. We'll see again
the overshoot of some of these free radicals here at the
center, OH I have to apologize for this tranparency; it's
not too clear.
You can also see carbon monoxide
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starting to be oxidized in the flame zone, NO2.
One interesting thing is that before
the flame, there is essentially no NO. It starts to form
right here. This is what a lot of people call (inaudible)
NO, and if, we could see the next slide, we see that happens
to these gases once they reach the secondary zone.
Now, here the mixture is being diluted
with nitrogen and oxygen, essentially air, and again we see-
the fuel, the hydrogen, and even the CO, which, I can find
it here, when it started, in this case was a fairly substan-
tial amount (inaudible) a negligible amount. NO is just
the rate of production of NO is being slowed because the
temperature is decreasing and after that it's essentially
frozen and you are simply seeing a dilution.
Interestingly enough, though NO2 is
still forming and here we have a case of about 20 parts per
million and that compares to about 500 parts per million for
NO.
I also have a few runs for the case of
the primary zone was burned with the equivalence ratio of
1 and show them for comparison.
VOICE: I think we are about out of
time.
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MR. ADELMAN: The main feature here
is, of course, the induction time was a lot quicker for
stoichiometric mixture. Aside from that, there is not a whole
lot of difference. Again, the combustion details that's
okay. We will get another slide.
Finally, the secondary zone, where the
emissions of NO in this case are about three times higher than
the case where we had .8 equivalence ratio, I think we have
about 2000 parts per million NO and, again, about 20 parts
per million of NO2, but I think this is a very interesting
program.
Our next step will be to obtain a
reasonable reaction scheme for methanol. 1 say "reasonable"
because there hasn't been much work done on this since 1934,
although Dr. Craig Bowman at United Aircraft is still working
on studies for methanol reaction schemes. So we intend to,
then, compare methanol with disassociated methanol and jet
fuels and try to use this program to design a low-emission
turbine burner.
Do we have any questions?
DR. BELDING: Henry, thank you very
much.
Our last speaker for this morning.
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Dr. Richard Johnson from the University of Missouri.
MR. HAGEY: I think I am going to make
a light adjustment in the schedule. I indicated when we
started this morning that we would try and get the City of
Seattle program presentation which originally was not
scheduled, but which we would like to schedule today.
Originally, we had thought of running it at five o'clock,
but I think there are a number of people who want to hear
this and five o'clock is a conflict with some people on
airline scheduling, so I'm going to schedule at one o'clock,
from 1:00 to 1:30, the City of Seattle personnel will present
an overview of their program plans and then our regularly
scheduled agenda will start at 1:30. Those of you that are
interested in sitting in on the Seattle presentation, I would
invite you to be here at one o'clock.
DR. JOHNSON: I would like to talk a
little bit about the methanol fuel studies that we are doing
at the University of Missouri at Rolla, and I will be the first
to admit that we are relative novices to the field of engine
and fuels research, having gotten into the field within the
last two to three years, and we got into it kind of in looking
at alternative fuels and energy forms that led us to the
conclusion that independent data was necessary and needed in
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terms of the use of possible alternate fuels and, in examining
the fuels that are likely to come on line and be viable in the
relatively near future, methanol certainly stands out in this
area and that existing technology can produce it. In addition
to that, it can be manufactured form a variety of sources,
coal, garbage; of course, petroleum as well.
Now, our initial concept was to consider
methanol as an extender for petroleum fuels, particularly
gasoline to do a characterization study to examine the emission
and fuel economy and other characteristics of methanol-gasoline
blends. We wanted to limit our study to small displacement
engines and the kinds of vehicles that they are likely to be
in because we felt that many factors will force a reduction
in vehicle size, weight and so forth by the time methanol is
available in any kind of quantity for fuel use.
The current work we are involved in
is supported by the Department of Transportation, and right
now we are working on two programs. One program is to
characterize emission fuel economy and so forth for the
small displacement engine, using what we call simulation of
the federal test procedure with the urban driving cycle.
If I could have the first slide.
Now, this is kind of a shoestring-rubber band operation, and
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we couldn't afford a vehicle, so what, we have got is the engine
and drive train that we can mount on a chassis dynamometer.
We have gone to a mobile analysis technique to determine the
concentrations of pollutants, fuel flow, and so forth as a
function of time. We sample data every half second and from
this do a carbon balance across the system and develop from
that the emission characteristics. This is the general
apparatus you see here.
Let me move to the next slide. This is
a fair view of the engine package. You will notice that there
is no vehicle around it.
Next slide, please. We have a separate
driver console with the driver's aid and other parameters
needed for the driver to operate the "vehicle."
Next slide, please. Our emission
measurement system consists of standard instruments for
measuring hydro unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide,
carbon dioxide, and oxides of nitrogen. We have made every
effort to obtain instruments with fast response and have,
indeed, included in our computer analysis of the data from the
system the corrections for the time response, concentration
characteristics, and so forth of each of these instruments.
Next slide, please. This doesn^t
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look, very fancy, but this is our data/acquisition system.
It consists of a 16-channe.l sampling system. We can sample'
15 channels every half second, which is tored in (inaudible)
form on magnetic tape and then we hand carry the magnetic tape
to our local computer center and essentially play it to the
computer and, from that point, analyze the data.
Now, a second program that we are
involved in at this point, in parallel with this one, is a
parameter study, using a CFR engine, and we are trying to
characterize the effect of spark on fuel consumption, emissions
and so forth, in addition to the methanol concentrations. We
are also doing a wet chemistry analysis of aldehydes and
trying to look at the, let us say, the in and out characteris-
tics of catalytic converter, particularly with respect to
aldehyde concentrations.
If I can have the next slide. For those
of you who are familiar with CFR engines, this is a very old
edition; however, it nevertheless has been brought up to
current state of operation and is, indeed, (inaudible) and
calibrated.
Our concept here is to move from this
parameter study and try to develop some important parameters
that can be varied, particularly ones that are easy to vary, like
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spark advance and perhaps fuel-air ratio, and incorporate
these changes into our engine drive package on the chassis
dynamometer and get results in terms of the federal test
procedure.
Now, we have completed some initial
studies, using the CFR engine in terms of developing octane
characteristics for methanol blends into unleaded gasolines,
and we ran into some rather peculiar characteristics. I'm
going to have to qualify my results a little bit here so
you can understand how these octane characteristics were
determined.
If I can have the next slide. Those
of you who are familiar with knock testing, and forgive the
slide; two inexperienced operators tried to put these things
together Friday night and we didn't do too well, but those
of youwho are familiar with knock testing, this is a repre-
sentation* of the knock characteristic. This is an isooctane,
the standard reference fuel, and, indeed, you see a sharp
spike here near the top of the pressure tine diagram. This
represents knock. Actually, there would be a ringing process
here, but this measurement is made after a filter in the knock
instrumentation, so this ring is removed.
Now, if we can move to the next slide.
TOO
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Under standard operating conditions for the knock test
procedure, if you run a hundred percent methanol, you will
get standard knock under certain conditions. However# if
you are listening to the engine, you will notice that it
is not knocking audibly and if you look at a pressure time
trace, you will see something like this. This is, indeed,
a fairly sharp pressure rise, but no sharp spike that
indicates actual engine knock. It turns out this is really
kind of a problem with the instrumentation in that it looks
at only the area above the line CD there and essentially
integrates that area and gives you a meter reading.
If we could go back to the previous
slide I don't know whether we can go backwards here
you will notice that for isooctane, the standard fuel, the
area above AB is controlled primarily by the spike area
there. Now, if we can move forward, for straight methanol
there is no spike, but the area could be equivalent, so you
could get standard knock even when the engine isn't knocking.
By slightly modifying the standard
test procedure and using an oscilloscope to determine when the
engine was knocking, we got traces similar to the next slide
here.
The upper slide is for methanol and
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the lower slide is for isooctane, plus tetraethyllead, in
order to bring the octane number up. These are at approxi-
mately the same octane number. Note there is still a
slight difference in the knock characteristics; however,,
there is no question at this point that the methanol is
knocking and, under these kind of conditions, we consistently
determine an octane rating for research octane of 109 1/2
for methanol.
We used this procedure henceforth
throughout the testing, particularly for high concentrations
of methanol.
We can move on to the next slide.
Here we are talking about the characteristics of four
unleaded fuels. Now, we have blended methanol with fuels
ranging from 81 research octane to 98 research octane and
this is the first of those fuels, a low-octane fuel. You
will note that the octane increase of the research octane
rating is fairly substantial. This is the kind of thing
that people note when they talk about the octane-improving
characteristics of methanol.
However, the motor research number,
which is probably a better indicator of how a modern engine
with automatic transmission is going to behave, doesn't show
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nearly so substantial an increase. You will notice there is
a couple of parameters defined here that you are probably
not familiar with. One is delta N and the other is K.
Essentially, we developed a description
or, I should say, fitted a description equation to the data
we developed and tried to come up with parameters that have
some physical meaning in terms of the octane characteristics*
Delta N is a characteristic we have
called the octane improvement index, or increment, and
essentially it gives an indication of the maximum possible
effect that methanol will have on a given base fuel. You
cannot possibly reach that kind of octane increase. In other
words, you can't increase the octane number by 30, but it
gives an indication of what the maximum effect could
conceivably be.
K is a parameter we have called the
octane response, and it kind of indicates how sensitive the
fuel is or the octane of the fuel is to small amounts of
methanol. The larger the K is, the more significant the
octane increase you will achieve by adding small amounts of
methanol.
If we could move on to the next slide,
we'll go through these fairly quickly. This is for increasing
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basic octanes of the fuel. This is at 89 research octane
fuel. Again, you will notice a substantial increase in the
research octane; in the motor octane there is very little
increase.
Next slide, please. This is again
a higjher octane fuel. In fact, this happens to be equivalent
to a premium, unleaded fuel that you could buy at the purnp.
Again, there is an increase in the research rating. The
motor rating, however, at increasing concentrations of
methanol, even goes down and the nexts lide here, this
is base fuel D which happens to be indolene clear and, again,
we see there is some improvement in the research octane but
very little in the motor. In fact, it does even go downhill.
Now, one parameter that has been
used to describe what's happening here is the blending octane
value and if I could have the next slide, we looked at
blending octane value for the first fuel and blending octane
value is, we feel, very misleading, particularly for low
concentrations of methanol and this is the range we expect
to be looking at for a couple of reasons. One is it's not
independent of the concentration, and we felt that any
parameter that was going to describe the effect of methanol
Dn a given base fuel ought to be independent of the concentratio
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of the methanol.
The. second thing is, when you get to
very low concentrations, because of the method of calculation
of blending octane value, any slight errors in your readings
are going to cause giant variations in the blending octane
value, and you can see this from the data presented here.
So that at very low levels of methanol concentration, which
are probably the most realistic ones, the blending octane
value doesn't have a very good, very stable meaning.
So we move to these other parameters
that we describe, the delta N characteristics which kind of
indicate the maximum increase you might be able to anticipate,
and this K factor which indicates how sensitive a fuel is
to small amounts of methanol.
Now, the last slide here represents the
results of correlations we tried to make between these two
parameters we have defined and the base fuel octane number.
Now, there is a piece of information missing off this figure.
N(f) is the octane number of the base fuel. These are the
results of the correlation we did for delta N and you will
notice that there is a pretty strong correlation between
the delta N factor and the research octane and, as well, the
motor octane number of the fuel and, in fact, they were
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well-described by a simple linear relationship. Although
we don't have sufficient data to draw any firm conclusions,
we could speculate from this information that this delta N
factor is apparently dependent only on the base fuel octane
number and not the composition, because the composition of
these unleaded fuels was quite variable as far as the
hydrocarbon distribution.
Well, this represents the current
status of our project. We are right now about to begin
taking data from our federal test procedure simulation and
hope to be able to report within the next few months at
least the beginnings of that study and are now converting
our CFR engine into the engine parameter studies. However,
this octane information has been valuable to us in the
sense that we have decided that compression ratio is probably
not going to be as significant a parameter as we had originally
thought in the sense that in actual vehicle operation, since
it operates more like the motor number, we see that the motor
octane isn't going to change very dramatically by adding
methanol. The sensitivity of the fuel mixture will increase,
but basically the motor characteristic doesn't appear to
change enough to justify a large program', examining changes
in compression ratio. So this data has been important to us
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in trying to shape some of our planning as far as our engine
parameter studies.
That's all I have.
DR. BELDING: Thank you, Rich. Do we
have any questions? Yes, sir?
VOICE: Your observation on the
research engine indicated a region which is defined as knock
on the basis of pressure and yet you don't hear the knock.
DR. JOHNSON: That's correct.
VOICE: There is a question: Isn't
the audible knock which you hear with this present engine,
which we must avoid at all costs, or is the excess pressure
rise on smaller is that same pressure rise over a longer
period of time?
DR. JOHNSON: I think the real
criteria is the spike that we saw, the pressure time trace.
This actually represents the detonation of the remaining
charge of fuel in the cylinder. When you have even though
it's a more rapid burning rate and you get a higher pressure,
it's spread over a larger period of time and you don't have
essentially an explosion occurring in the chamber, which
this is the thing that tends to
VOICE: Isn't it true that is that
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a usable increase in pressure which, works for you as ordinary
pressure increase does, or is that one to be avoided?
And so the whole que±ion of the meaning of {inaudible) has
to be re-examined {inaudible). What would you like to have
and what becomes dangerous? So I don't know how to answer
that. You have opened up a very important observation, a
very important area. I hope a lot of people will look at
it, think about it and not just stick exactly what you
already know for gasoline. Gasoline has its own properties.
DR. JOHNSON* Well,I agree with you
in the sense that we feel the real criteria is going to come
in road octane and we are not equipped to do that. The real
value that the car develops hopefully lies somewhere between
the motor and the research and the question now is where.
Does it lie closer to the motor or does it lie somewhere
more toward research when you burn alcohol, and we don't know
the answer to that.
VOICE: How much of that pressure
increase can you (inaudible)?
VOICE: I noticed in some of the
diagrams of knocking cycle that the knock normally occurs at
the end of combustion. Was the total time did you analyze
the cycle to indicate what the total time of flame propagation
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really was with (inaudible)? In other words, was the flame
speed, overall flame speed (inaudible)? Was that higher or
was that lower with methanol?
DR.JOHNSON; I would have to be honest
and say we did not analyze the
VOICE: Usually, you can determine
this very simply with knocking cycles because the knock
occurs right at the end and it occurred to ran, fr fchf.
flame diagrams that you showed for comparable octane fuels,
that, in fact, the methanol knock occurred later in the
cycle than it did in the case of the isooctane.
DR» JOHNSONj There is definitely
a difference in the knock characteristic. This is not only
visual, but it's audible as well.
VOICE: Of course^ you could analyze
a (inaudible) diagram to try to determine the total time of
flame propagation to determine whether, in fact, that is
higher or lower and I guess my impression, in fact, is it
is longer with methanol.
DR. JOHNSOW: As far as the total
flame. The onset appears to be more rapid.
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Seattle Presentation;
MR. ROBERT SHEEHAN: Bear in mind a couple of
things here. This show is straight out of the photo lab.
I haven't even seen it, gone through it myself, so and
it's also made for our City Council, which we intend to
approach next week.
As if that isn't complicated enough,
why, it was intended to be a double-screen presentation. You
are going to see them all on one, so I will do the best I can
with it.
I see some friends out here that
really helped us. without the Tillmans and the Reeds
our progress even this far would have been
impossible, so thanks to all those that helped us.
I wonder if we can dim the lights a
bit.
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In December of '73 and commencing
right after the first of the year, the Mayor of the City of
Seattle instructed the Department of Lighting, the electric
utility of Seattle, and the Department of Engineering to
undertake a study for the utilization of solid waste for
energy for salvage, the goal being to get out of the landfill
business, if possible, before 1980. It was pretty obvious,
as we began our study, that we weren't just dealing with
garbage or solid waste, as it's called in more sophisticated
circles. We were really talking about a resource which was
being dumped on our city hands, in fact, in large quantities
and, of course, it has a chemical characteristic and it's
essentially a shame to bury it.
With that kind of beginning, of course,
being with the lightingvfcility, our assumption was that we
would ultimately see its use in a steam power plant of one
kind or another, either for the generation and marketing of
steam in the urban area or more likely for the generation
of electricity. So we iDked at a lot of concepts, including
some involving gasification by pyrolysis. As a result of
looking at these various alternatives, we catalogued over
a dozen of them that looked to be practical from a
technological standpoint and we compared them on the basis
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of ultimate disposal cost, which is the number on the far
right.
Now, bear in mind that landfill
essentially is about $4 to $5 a ton, projected to grow as
labor costs rise, as fuel costs for hauling rise, and as
we move farther and farther out to more environmentally
acceptable sites, if there are any.
Essentially, the name of the game
was to come up with something better than landfill. In our
early study, why, we looked at coal-fired plants, combination
coal and solid waste, pyrolysis and so on, and along the way
we becan to realize that the gas stream coming from a
pyrolysis system was potentially a feed stock for the manu-
facture of methanol and so, having identified alternatives
K-2 K-l and K-2, that is the pyrolysis for the production
of methanol, having identified those as potentially very
attractive economically, we realized there were other
benefits as well, which I will cover as we go on.
Well, of course, there has been an
awful lot of reports written on the subject. The one on
the right was our summary of alternatives which we published
in May of this year. The one on the left has recently been
completed by Mathematical Sciences, Northwest, whom we have
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retained as a consultant during the period May through
September for an intense look at this methanol concept.
Along the way, they identified the possibility, potentially
more attractive economically, of making ammonia from the
off-gas or conceivably a plant combining products. Of course,
along thevay we have had an interesting inter-departmental
group and try to think a little bit as though you are in
city government and grasp some of the problems. Our interests
were across ordinary organizational boundaries. We had a
man from oar office of Management and Budget looking at it
from a management standpoint, myself from the Lighting
Department, Dive Gordon, who is down here raise your hand,
Dave who is Manager of our total city fleet of some 2500
vehicles. In addition, we had Mass Sciences arid we had,
of course, our Solid Waste Manager, so we had a cross section
of people attacking a problem. It was pretty obvious that
methanol held some intriguing possibilities for us: City
energy and fuel independence for our fleet, reduction in
air pollution to the extent that our own fleet would reduce
air pollution in the urban core, and, of course, comparable
costs or better relative to landfill. With these incentives,
why, Mass Sciences proceeded.
Along the way, we briefed the Mayor
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and the Chairman of the City Council Utilities Committee
and appropriate department heads in many sessions, receiving
their endorsement and encouragement consistently all the way
along. Within city government you can see the cross section
of people that we had, from various departments on the executiv
as well as the nut and bolts level like Dave Gordon and
myself and the Solid Waste Manager. The team that
Mathematical Sciences, Northwest, put together was a pretty
impressive team with strong representation from the
Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of
Washington, plus the inclusion of an industrial representative.
We retained or they retained Foster Wheeler to provide a
certain practical nut and bolt flavor and their mission was
to essentially review the total concept of methanol relative
to technical feasibility, economics, marketing the products,
benefits to the City, and the environmental impact. Of course,
it was in the course of their efforts this is the structure
of their organization in the course of their efforts, some
very competent chemical engineering people, a team led by
Dr. Haltraan, the University of r*-.:"hinjt ..n, identified
ammonia as another possibility with some very interesting
market advantages in terms of dollars, but we are still
fascinated at the concept of methanol for vehicles.
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In any case, the study that Mass
Sciences has done confirmed our belief in the technical
feasibility of the processes for either methanol or ammonia
from solid waste so that put the problem to bed.
The process that we have considered,
of course, is the preparation of solid waste with some
material salvage, then gasification, some waste from that,
mostly a granular type of material, and then a gas shift
reaction to get the carbon monoxide and hydrogen into the
proper relationship, and finally the manufacture of our end
product, another ammonia or methanol^.
So the first step, of course, is to
prepare the solid waste and one way to do it is, of course,
to try to use it raw. One system we are looking at would
allow the use of raw solid waste. It seems more likely,
though, that we would go to a grinding operation and here the
photo lab let me down. They cropped out a photo and cropped
out the bottom, which is what I wanted. Essentially, I was
trying to show a simple grinding operation. A more sophis-
ticated route is to go through grinding and air classification
until you get a material that's essentially nearly all
cellulose. I doubt that we will go that far. I think it's
more likely that we will go the simple grind route. But
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that's the upstream fuel preparation.
The second step is gasification,
essentially destructive distillation, converting the
cellulose to usable gas products, and so many of you are
intimately familiar with this kind of chemistry, we end
up with carbon monoxide and hydrogen but, unfortunately,
they are in the wrong mix.
The system we are most interested in
at this point, because we feel it's well-developed or near
commercialization, is Union Carbide's Purox System.
Schematically, we see it here. Essentially, it's a vertical
furnace not unlike in appearance a blast furnace, and the
solid waste comes in the top. The heat for the process is
at the bottom, where char, which is all that's remaining at
the bottom, is partially oxidized to form CO., which is hot,
which then permeates upward through the solid waste, performing
a pyrolysis reaction and also drying the solid waste at the
top and voila, out comes mostly carbon monoxide, a
considerable amount of hydrogen, some methane, some CO2
and whatever else happens to get swept on out, which requires
cleanup.
The next step following cleanup,
which, of course, will involve some sophisticated system
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to keep the sulfur under control and anything that might
poison catalysts, the next step in any case is to get the
carbon monoxide and the hydrogen to the right relationship,
for example, for the production of methanol or for the
sake of ammonia, to get that hydrogen out. So we go through
a shift reaction, which meany of you are again far more
familiar with than I, so that we get the right gas mix so
that we can go into a product manufacture and that, of
course, then, is the fourth step, involving carbon monoxide,
hydrogen, pressure, temperature, catalyst and, depending on
what we are doing and the process, why, we either end up
with methanol or ammonia.
Now, the first one is probably a
little more straightforward from a plumbing standpoint.
That is, we are going to methanol. The other alternative,
ammonia, of course, would involve using nitrogen and that's
quite practical in this kind of a scheme because, in order
to run the pyrolysis plant upstream. Step 2, we had to use
oxygen and so in the process of making the oxygen, we have
some nitrogen available which lends itself, then, to this
kind of a process. However, it's a little more costly and
complex from a plant standpoint.
The question then is: What are the
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yields? On methanol, we conclude that this is the actual
yield. In our earlier studies, we figured about 25 percent
more than this, hut under the test of actual mass balances,
by some competent chemical engineering people, these are
the kinds of yields we looked for from the City of Seattle
with 550,000 tons of solid waste a year. If we go to
ammonia, we get a little more in the way of tonnage and it
looks like 120,000 tons a year. The big question, of course,
is markets, among other things. Obviously, the methanol
could be marketed, potentially marketable in the chemical
market, but our preliminary studies indicate that we would
saturate the Northwest market. We could displace about
80 percent of what's currently being marketed as chemical
methanol. So that doesn't look too good, unless it was "by
way of substitution through appropriate companies that are
now hauling it up from the Gulf Coast, so that's kind of
iffy.
It's also a very cyclical market. The
automotive fuel market is pretty obviously an attractive
market because, first of all, we have a captive fleet of our
own which could consume about 1/6 of our methanol output
if we went 100 percent methanol. That's an attractive
alternative for us because of the energy independence and
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because of reduced air pollution.
We could also dump it on the utility
market, and I do mean "dump" because the price would not be
as attractive.
When we look at ammonia, it, too,
has some interesting possibilities from a marketing stand-
point, but it doesn't look like we can even slightly dent
the fertilizer market, for example, and Eastern Washington,
as many of you know, is heavy on wheat growing, so it looks
to us like there is a very large ammonia market and the
question is: What are the economics of the various alterna-
tives? We can see some benefits to the methanol to the
City directly, but the production of fertilizer in this
day and age is not exactly un-American, if you know what
I mean.
In any case, these are the kinds of
crises as we see them right now. I think that probably the
chemical is a little on the conservative side. Spot prices
are higher and considerably higher in some cases.
Automotive fuel we are saying it's got half the heating
value of gasoline and, of course, you get into the argument
do you or don't you include the cost of road tax? One of
the things that I think that anyone who goes into the
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methanol business is going to have to address is whether or
not it should, through appropriate legislative changes, be
given a break in terms of road tax. I think in the case of
Project Independence, I think there is, a good arguing point
for this.
As far as utility fuel, it's got to
compare on a BTU basis with distillate. It's got half the
heating value, a little less than half the heating value of
distillates, in the low 30's, so you are at 15 cents a
gallon. So it's pretty obvious, if you go methanol you
have got to look at the chemical market which is a relatively
limited market, and automotive fuel which is not limited,
so we are looking at, first of all, a fleet demonstration
and potentially wider use if that turns out to be the most
desirable scheme.
In terms of prices for ammonia, this
looks pretty attractive. Of course, it's been an upsey-
m
downsey market as many of you know. hese kinds of things
we are going to analyse in the several months ahead.
In looking at the historic crisis
of the these products, you can see that there have been some
good times and some bad times, and I think there has been
a dip farther than that on methanol that we haven't plotted up
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Similarly, ammonia has been a rather well, I guess I
could say erratic market. At the moment, it looks like a
bonanza, but who knows what lies ahead?
These are the kinds of things we
are going to address in a coming study. In terms of the
economics, taking a look at the methanol, we are a little
short of time, I won't dwell on it, but essentially what
we see is that for methanol we can about compete with knd-
fill right now and to the solid waste people that's very
attractive.
In terms of a 15-year writeoff, which
is what we are using here, in a 15-year plant life, we figure
that we could save $2 million relative to the cost of
continued landfill and, of course, we would have then realized
benefits in terms of fleet fuel independence, reduction of
air pollution, in a small amount at least, and very significant
environmental benefits.
So this one looks like a winner, even
with the short, what we consider to be a short plant writeoff
time for a city, that's a 15-year writeoff. This assumes
8 percent money.
Now, when we look at ammonia, we
practically dance and do a jig here because, if you look
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at bottom line, if these numbers are correct and these
actual markets and revenues for ammonia can really be
realized, this thing is really a bonanza. We can actually
end up with better than free disposal of solid waste and
so looking at it from the City's standpoint, this could be
very attractive economically but, again, the market really
has to be tested and this, does not afford us in-city benefits;
that is, fuel independence.
So what, we are looking at with
greatest interest right now is a plant that has a mix in
terms of product output, enough fuel output in methanol for
our own fleet uses and then ammonia to make money. We are
looking at specific sites. We are getting down to actual
specifics on this project.
We had very preliminary appraisal
of the environmental impact and how we put it together on
property which we and the county own. Looking at a real
place, a real time, we are getting very interested in the
thing. We look at the problems associated with the various
products. We view methanol as something that's quite easily
handled in conventional tankage, for example. Of course,
there are some tradeoffs when you get into ammonia now.
It gets a little more complicated to store the product.
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These are some of the things we have to evaluate along the
way.
In. terms of transportation, of course,
with methanol it's pretty easy. When we get into ammonia,
why, we have to talk about pressurized carriers or progenic
carriers.
So we are into a little different
ball park here. These are all factors that we'll have to
somehow evaLuate, hopefully in a fairly analytical and
riot political context.
In terras of safety, of course, you
are all familiar with; the safety aspects. I an inclined to
think that it's pretty much a tradeoff between methanol and
ammonia. They are not orders of magnitude apart. There
are problems with each, but then people don't go around
drinking gasoline out of fuel tanks either. So these are
some of the matters that we will be exposing to our legislative
body in Seattle and. of course, we will have to address
environmental impact, esthetics. It's very difficult to make
a refinery-look like anything other than a plant. That's
mainly what we are talking about. We are talking about some
sewer waste, some air waste, no doubt, from various venting
portions in the cycles, some heat reduction, but small
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compared to a power plant and, of course, there will be
noise. About the same tiling holds true for an ammonia
facility. I think environmentally it's about a 1 for 1.
When we get into regional planning,
which, of course, is the end thing in most regions, the
question is: What does it do to regional planning? Well,
for one thing, if you start locating plants of this kind
near the source of your solid waste, you can now start saving
fuel, reducing haul cost, cutting noise and so on. So there
are some real advantages to this. We are looking at the
possibility and will be looking at the possibility of some
other strategically located sites in the area to be handled
by other agencies. These are some of the political problems
we have to put together in working on a concept like this.
Our conclusion is that Seattle's
concept can be duplicated elsewhere in our region. We have
yet to convince some other political entities of this, but
there is no reason why it can't also be duplicated elsewhere.
In terms of what it looks like, this
is the only picture I could get and I gleaned that from a
Davey Power Gas booklet. If there is anybody here from
Davey Power Gas, thank you. I didn't have time to get your
permission to use it, but I gave you credit.
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I wanted to let our City Council know
that we are not talking about a thing of beauty here. It's
a piece of plumbing and it's functional and that's what it
looks like. Maybe we can get some hippie painter to do an
exotic paint job on it. I'm not sure what.
We are looking at a non-action plan
for our City Council and essentially this is the pitch:
We want four months. In that four months, what we want to
do is, we want to looking at marketing of .our product. We
want to look at the possibility of participation by other
agencies or industries in our program. It's a demonstration
program, and we are looking at the beginnings of a fleet
program, and at the end of that we'll pretty well know
whether it's go or no go.
If we can actually put together some
pretty hard numbers on product prices, potentially, long-term
contracts, we feel that at that point we could justify
funding of a project on revenue bonds, which is the real
way to go, make it pay its own way. That's our goal.
In terms of product marketing, we
will be looking for long-range contracts, either for product
or potentially for a joint ownership of the facility. For
example, where we own the gasifiers that produce gas and then
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we had an across-the-fence type agreement, take or pay on
gas to a firm that wanted to make either ammonia or methanol,
with a cut of the methanol reserved for us. There are a
lot of possibilities here and we are open to any kind of
propositions at this point-
Of course, the markets we are looking
at are those. We are definitely and perhaps tactlessly
very interested in participation. We are looking at state,
at federal, and we are sure interested in industry. If there
are any enterpreneurial types that want to walk into Seattle
and make a proposition on joint construction of a plant,
great. We are open to propositions and we'll he looking for
them.
We will also be rapping on doors, but
we don't know what door to knock on at this point in time.
I think with (inaudible) having been formed, why, there is
some problems but I'm sure we'll live through them.
Our vehicle test plan I think Dave
Gordon can address that subject, but it will be the first
phase will be a limited test. We actually got approval of
policemen, to the Police Department. They can run police
cars in actual working circumstances.
As far as general-use cars, that's a
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little more a little easier we can convince people of.
Similarly with trucks. But if we go to a hundred percent
methanol and a hundred percent of our now gasoline-powered
fleet, that will be a first.
So you fellows out there in the
scientific end, really doing the exploration work and pioneering#
we're the settlers. We are going to come in and try to use
this technology. You guys prove that you can do things;
we're going to put it to work and, of course, in the context
of being settlers, I guess we will be the first settlers out
there, but you guys are ahead of us and we appreciate that
support.
There is a picture of the Mayor and
a couple of other dignitaries actually looking at the kinds
of cars we are going to try converting, so it's for real and
this little dolly with the smile, which some of you remember
from Henniker, is Dick Pefley's daughter in disguise. She
really isn't that cute any more. She, with her smile,
portrays our general attitude about methanol.
I'm running out of time. I'll skim
over this.
You see Dick Pefley's data and,
Dick, I was hoping to plagiarize your work by showing this
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to the City Council. It is data that, you developed, with
appropriate credits, I hope. Yes. you are on the bottom
there.
So, essentially,' solid waste can be
made into methanol or ammonia. Processes are definitely
feasible. The economics are favorable, and the City can
realize significant benefits, either in fuel independence
or reduced air pollution or just plain money in savings
to the people who have to to pay have their garbage hauled
away. In terms of conservation and Project Independence,
it's a crime to see scenes like this, where we are burying
fuel that can be put to work and it's really surprising
that all of these forces have come together at the same
time environmental problems, the fuel problems, resource
problems, and a general awareness that we just can't continue
on with that kind of thing. So there are the benefits in
methanol, benefits from ammonia, and it's time for our City
Council to move.
If you were the City Council, I will
say, "Well, fellows "
Excuse me, I wouldn't say "fellows."
I would be a lot more tactful than that, but essentially the
ball is in your court. We want them to give us a resolution
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that assures us that the City is behind this program, and we
can then go to people in industry and look for markets. That
will be subject to its demonstrated economic feasibility.
We will also be asking them for a modest budget and hope-
fully, when we get to the bitter end,we will be able to say,
"The Seattle City Council recommends Go."
I can't yet report that, but I hope
to in two weeks. That's all I've got.
Dave, do you want to add anything on
the
MR. HAGEY: Thank you very much. I
think it's a very fine presentation and, on the surface, a
very fine program.
Mr. Jerome Hinkle from EPA will briefly
describe a study which we have underway with Stanford Research
Institute on the Impact of Alternative Automotive Fuels.
Jerry?
MR. HINKLE: (inaudible) counterpoint
to this morning's laboratory thing, so let me ask you to
extend your imaginations beyond the individual laboratory
suggestions. We are conducting at
Exxon Research and Engineering and at the
Institute of Gas Technology, a pair of studies checking out
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the feasibility of large-scale production of alternative
fuels, and this study looks at the impacts of that across
several dimensions. It's a technology assessment that's
been contracted out, the basic part of it has been contracted
out to Stanford Research Institute who has put together a
multi-disciplinary team of a group of economists, a
sociologist, a couple of environmental effects people, some
technology people, people who are looking at some of the
chemical engineering parts of it, these kinds of process
portions.
Let me sort of read down some definitive
things here. We want to look at an assessment of the impacts
that resource extraction, alternative fuels production,
distribution and utilization would have upon the environment,
domestic energy resources, production distribution industries,
urban and rural regions, and finally consumptive sectors.
There are three basic tasks we define
here and we will just sort of we are just sort of completing
the first task and we are partially -- we are getting well
into the second task.
Task 1 is to identify and assess
critical impacts of major national and regional shifts to
alternative fuels.
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Under this, we start by devd. oping a
base line fuel demand forecast which will guide scenario
construction which then these scenarios will represent
major shifts to different resource fuel combinations and#
from this, we expect or along with this we expect to develop
impactor rays associated with differential levels of
development, as different levels of maturity and differen-
tial rates of development. Each scenario will include a
systems analysis, showing inflows and outflows of capital,
labor, natural resources and energy. Critical environmental,
economic and social impacts will, then be identified and
a sensitivity analysis done to isolate critical effects.
Okay. That v.ork is largely completed
at this time, although unreported.
Task 2, which we are working on
presently, is to determine which, if any, among the alternative
are serious substitution candidates and estimate timing and
extent of penetration of the auto transport sector. Under
this, we'll be identifying competing uses of specified
resource fuel combinations by developing criteria aid methods
for allocating between fuel demand sectors, develop priorities
for uses on the basis of Task 1 results with respect to
including locality and sensitivity analyses that have followed
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from the Task 1.
The Task 1 things are a necessary
kind of preparation for the Task 2.
Task 3, evaluate the relative
attractiveness of alternative resource fuel combinations
for auto transportation during the 1975-2000 time frame and
beyond; to develop comparative criteria applying to ranking
for net feasibility, using Task 1 and Task 2 results;
perform another sensitivity analysis to develop some policy
options for.this.
It's a very conscious effort to do
some looping feedback kinds of things with some of the things
being accomplished in the first stages, and we expect then to
evaluate and estimate some costs of some of these policy
options with regard to shifts to major substitutions of
fuel.
The products of this research are
tailored to the need of a wide base of the potential users,
especially policy planning in government and industry. Much
of the basic data, systems, desciption and scenarios could be
utilized by themselves, but their primary value lies in the
large-scale systems analysis that they complete. Specific
policy options for fuel alternatives will be laid out with
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all supporting analyses that influence those choices as well
as for alternative options that seem less feasible, con-
sidering environmental, social and economic factors.
In this, we were visualizing alternative
fuels introduction as a problem in the management of
technological innovation where optimizing a cross regional
and national levels must be (inaudible).
Total funding in this regard is
$309,000. We have got some follow-on technical consulting
work that Exxon and IGT are doing with us and
the Office of-Research and Development, EPA,
has a supplementary grant that looks at the identifi-
cation of future pollution control system requirements.
I got about a minute and a half.
Any questions? You have got a handout if any of you are
interested at other levels of detail, we have I have some
copies of scope of work back here, if you are interested in
carrying them along to people who you think in your organiza-
tions may be particularly interested in this or may perhaps
give us a hand, some advice at some time or another.
Thank you.
MR. HAGEY: Any questions? Thank you,
Jerry.
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We are now turn to the portion of
our Conference dealing with government and industry research.
Again, this is principally a discussion on methanol,
methanol-gasoline blend research progress.
Our first speaker is Mr. Jack Freeman
from Sun Oil Company. Mr. Freeman has an M.E. fromrCorhell
University and his Bachelor's degree from Northwestern
University. He is a senior environmental engineer with
responsibility in the area of product quality. He has worked
at Sun Oil for nine years in automotive-environmental affairs,
technical services products planning and forecasting for
applied research and development.
MR. FREEMAN: Thank you, Graham.
The program mentions me in connection
with Sun Oil Company. Actually, that's a gracious of recog-
nizing the people that sent me here today, but what I will
have to talk to you about is a little API program that we
have ongoing at the time.
About a year ago, when the Project
Independence concept was first identified, the American
Petroleum Institute looked at its position on non-hydrocarbon
fuels and found that it had really only one technical
assessment, a report that had been published in 1970 and
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was hardly really comprehensive even in terms of a literature
search and tended to emphasize ethanol, which was the
alcohol of interest at the time the study was put together.
So we put together, the NAPI, a little task group to deter-
mine what we ought to do really. Would it be acceptable and
useful to update that 1970 report, or should we really start
from scratch and look at the thing again and decide what
we ought to do? So we put together a group of people, one
of whom is here on the program this afternoon, and looked
at the general question and thought, yes, it would be time
to look at the whole subject of alcohol fuels again, not
try to update the report that we already had, but we felt
that at that time, and I think it's still true, we felt that
we could make a useful contribution by looking critically at
the literature, much of which exists in the technical arms
of our own member companies, and producing an appropriate
study that hopefully would be a base, a technical base, for
policy makers.
The API, of course, is a trade
association, but since the member companies had a great deal
of technical expertise, it's also a research arm. Our task
force decided, rather than to try to do this assessment
in-house, since we were looking for a critical evaluation of
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the literature, that we would hire contractors and we did
hire a contractor for this program. William F. Miller is
our contractor and, working with our task force, he has
outlined the program, a critical evaluation, and he has
outlined his literature search. He has that pretty well
in hand by now, He has made interviews with most of the
sources of information on alcohol fuels as they exist at
the present time, and I thought the most useful thing that
I could do at this point would to be review with you, I
suppose, the table of contents, if you will, of what this
effort hopefully will bring about, and if you turn on the
first chart,please, because I think that you might agree that
this has general application. Perhaps it's just as well that
I give this little talk first in the program this afternoon.
You would probably agree that you would
want to look at these factors whether you were looking at
alcohol fuels or any other alternative fuels that might be
considered,, and we start, really, with the properties of
alcohols and blends, applications I can hardly read my
own chart applications in automotive fuel. That really
is going to amount to be the centerpiece of the whole effort.
It certainly will be the largest chapter that we'll have in
this thing and it's developing.
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Other fuel uses, non-fuel uses, of
course.
Manufacture of alcohols. Distribution
in the market. Economic considerations. Health and safety
considerations, and then some conclusionary points.
Now, I think it will be useful to go
into some of these chapters in some detail to show you how
we see this thing at the moment.
Now, if I could have the second chart,
please. I don't want to pre-empt what you are going to hear
later. You are going to get some of this as we go through
the afternoon, so perhaps this will serve as a bit of a
preview.
Properties of alcohols and of alcohol
blends. The general physical properties. Combustion
characteristics, vapor-pressure relationships. The water
tolerance situation, the corrosion aspects.
Now, Item 4, I'll talk about separately.
That's our automotive fuels aglication section, and I think
that's probably one of the most controversial and complex
areas of the whole methanol fuels subject, and I keep saying
"methanol fuels," but we are talking about ethanol as well
as methanol in this study.
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Our fuel uses, we haven't talked about
the utilities, for example. At the Henneker Engineering
Foundation Conference, this was discussed in great detail.
Boiler operation, dual fuel turbine
operation. The alcohols look very attractive in the turbine
fuel, indeed, as they might be if they were to be used as
a fuel perhaps in other stationary power applications.
We have to be considered we have
to be concerned with gasoline appliances, not because they
are large users of fuel, but because gasoline gets into them.
Small engines, the same thing as well.
Now, the next chart will focus in on
the automotive applications that concern us. You had a pretty
good summary of that already, I think, with Dr. Johnson's
remarks on the anti-knock situation this morning. He mentions
that he still needs road octane data. Certainly, v/e think
in terms of the laboratory octane effects and the road octane
effects. From what I have seen of Miller's work to date,
it looks as though what Dr. Johnson had to say this morning
about the octane characteristics of methanol should give you
a pretty good picture.
The engine performance, power and
eiconomy. We have had a lot of allegations here. We think
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that if you really look at the fuel consumption and thermal
efficiency curves for homogeneous charged spark ignition
engines that you could predict many of the power and output
effects that have keen demonstrated with methanol and, of
course, again you look at these things on the laboratory
scale and then you look at them in terms of full-scale
multi-cylinder engines, vehicle studies. Again, I this
is a preview of what you are going to hear later from
Joe Calluci, much of the same material.
Also, in vehicle operability,
drivability and lean mixture effects. Do you have a different
situation with methanol than you have with hydrocarbon fuels?
There is sortie indication that you do. So we'll be covering
that in this section.
Starting warm-up vapor lock. Some
very peculiar situations occur. In vapor lock, the methanol
blends are hardly linear as far as vapor pressure blending
is concerned and probably Bob Lindquist will have something
to say about that in his presentation.
Then, of course, the problem of how
you handle blends, the problem of water tolerance and phase
separation. I think we continue that on the next chart.
Air-polluting emissions. Laboratory
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engine studies, carbon monoxide and other exhaust
constituents. What are they? How do we look at these
things? Do we look at them on a mass basis? Do we look
at them on a volume basis? We have volume methanol blends
don't blend linearly on a volume basis. How do you handle
this? How about the nitrogen oxide situation, vis-a-vis
stoichiometry and the range of flammability that can be
we are looking at what the literature has to say in these
areas.
Unburned fuel and its decomposition
products, and then emissions from motor vehicles themselves,
and then studies with the modified methanol fuels.
Then the effect on the fuel system,
fuels and lubricants.
The corrosion effects you will hear
more about that from Bob Lindquist.
Solvent effects, other material effects
that one would encounter in the vehicle fuel system, and
effects on the lubricant as well.
May I have the next chart, please.
Non-fuel uses we mentioned this a little bit earlier in
the first overview.
Industrial chemical production, of coursi
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that's where methanol is used today. Production of proteins,
beverage alcohol brings in the grain alcohol situation again.
Municipal waste treatment we just heard about. Manufacture
of alcohols, methyl and ethyl, historical, bringing us
through to date, to the production of coal from waste.
Coal, the same for methanol.
The distribution problems in the
marketplace, transportation. How do we handle a fuel that
has such a different water tolerance than do our hydro-
carbon fuels? Can we handle such fuels successfully in
gasoline distribution systems? Must we go to different
if we use methanol as an automotive fuel, do we consider
blending it at point of sale, for example, to minimize the
water problem? We'll be getting into these aspects and those
questions and then, of course, the economic considerations.
I don't really how much we can actually treat the economics
in this kind of a report. They become so inextricably
intertwined with public policy that perhaps this report is
not going to be definitive in those areas at all.
Then, of course, the OSHA, the health
and safety effects, handling regulations and so on.
I think that it's inappropriate at
this time to say anything really conclusionary. It's obvious
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that methyl alcohol can be used in vehicles and in automobiles.
That's already been demonstrated. I suppose the question is:
Do you really want to use methyl alcohol that way? I guess
we have a limited amount of hydrocarbons,, and how we use
them depends on how we deal with cars, really, and we hope
that this report will shed some light on coming public
policies in that area.
Now, I don't want to take any more
time at this point, Graham. I think that gives you an
overview. If there are any questions, we could perhaps
entertain them.
VOICE: One factor in emissions
control that methanol fuels is probably, I would say, gotten
short shrift, people haven't discussed it very much at this
point, the vapor composition above a methanol-gasoline flame
has a very substantial amount of methanol. This certainly
has to have some impact on how one goes about designing a
vapor loss entraining device or possibly might have an effect
on the functioning of the present gasoline vapor loss systems.
You know, from basic principles, one would think that a
canister would load with methanol rather more timely than
it does with (inaudible). It could conceivably, for example,
kill off an evaporative loss package that way.
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MR. FREEMAN: Yes, I think that's
a very interesting point. That whole question of evapora-
tive emissions and the degree of control needed needs to
be looked at.
VOICE: (inaudible)
MR. FREEMAN: Dick, I had hoped --
when I told Graham that I would come to this meeting, I had
hoped that I could give you more than just a rundown through
our table of contents. I had hoped that we would have it
well in hand by tow. This has proved to be a much bigger
task, I think, than any of us really thought when we began,
and our objective is to try to come up with something that
is useful not just today or tomorrow, but can still be
referred to five years from now. So it's been a pretty big
job and I'm hopeful that we will get this dog-gone thing out
by the first of the year.
As I say, I had hoped to have had it
by now.
VOICE: How will the report be
distributed?
MR. FREEMAN: It will be available
through the API. I have been taking names of people who have
a particular interest in getting a copy of it, but it will
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be available on request through API.
MR. HAGEY: Thank you very much, Dick.
Our second speaker on the agenda was
Mr. Richard Hum from the Bureau of Mines in Bartletsville,
Oklahoma. Dick is not with us today.
Mr. Jerry Alsup from the Bureau of
Mines will be representing Mr. Hurn. Mr. Alsup has a
Bachelor's degree from the University of Tulsa. He is a
mechanical engineer and project leader for the Bureau of
Mines.
MR. ALSUP: Our work at the Bureau of
Mines could be divided into two major groups. The first
effort will be in fuels. We will be preparing a number of
different fuel stocks at varied aromatic concentration,
different octane levels, and we will prepare from this an
inventory of the physical characteristics of the fuel,
including water tolerance levels, hopefully maybe as a
function of aromatics, and the nonsolubility of the methanol
in the fuel also.
The second major part of the program
also, with the fuels, we will be determining the octane
requirements and the octane susceptibility of the various
fuels.
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The second major part will be the
actual automotive testing, and in this we will have all
late-model equipment. We will be using a 350 cubic inch
engine on a stationary dynamometer and with this engine we
will be first looking at the lean limit using blends up to
15 percent and also 100 percent methanol. This will also
be done at different compression ratios, 8 to 1 and 9 1/4 to 1,
and also 10 to 1, and also with this engine we will do some
emissions and fuel economy maps. The majority of the work
will be done at steady-state conditions, but hopefully some
will be with the transient conditions. This will be
dependent on the development of a decent fuel handling
system, air-fuel induction system.
Right now we're looking at going two
different ways. One is using a completely vaporized mixture
in the engine and get some ignition measurements this way and
also using either a fuel injection system or some type of a
carburetion system that will provide decent distribution in
the cylinders, but not completely vaporized fuels.
Also, in addition, six vehicles will
be used for studies with blends. This will be with the
methanol as a fuel extender, standard carburetion system,
standard adjustments.
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We will be looking at '75 model
catalyst and non-catalyst equipped vehicles. Also, we will
be making measurements before the catalyst and after the
catalyst on some vehicles.
In addition, we will be doing work
at 20 degrees Fahrenheit as well as 100 degrees to see if
there is any, or to see the dependence on temperature when
using these blends. The vehicle work will just be done with
the blends, not the pure methanol.
Also with this, we will be making
economy measurements, aldehyde determinations, hydrocarbon
distribution for some of the tests, and also we will be
measuring the unburned methanol in the majority of the tests.
I think this is a pretty good summary
of what we're doing.
MR. HAGEY: Thank you, Jerry.
Do we have any questions?
VOICE: Jerry, how are you are you
going to shoot for control of vapor pressure, consistent
control of the Reed vapor pressure in fuel set? If so, how
do you approach this problem, varying the methanol content?
MR. ALSUP: Well, first, we will
determine the vaporization characteristics of the fuel before
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we start and we will compare this with what we get.
Controlling it, as such, we will not make any other effort
than that, using different peaks.
We have already seen, done a few
tests, and might shed some light on the previous question
about the vaporization part of it, and in the '75 test
procedure, our Bag 3, after the hot soak, is just about
twice as high as the first cold bag, which does suggest
that the a lot of vaporization in the carburetor.
VOICE: It depends on control of
the Reed vapor pressure. If you
blend, saiy, 20 percent methanol into a convention gasoline
base stock at, say, 75 degrees ambient temperature, the
material is boiling. (inaudible)
You have to do something to control
the Reed vapor pressure.
VOICE: How long have you been burning
the unburned methanol and aldehyde?
MR. ALSUP: We are working on that
right now, trying to develop some methods. Right now we're
looking at a GC, the type that was discussed here earlier,
backflush.
MR. HAGEY: Fine. Thank you, Jerry.
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Our next speaker is Mr.Joseph Colucci
from the General Motors Corporation. Mr. Colucci has a
Bachdor's degree in mechanical engineering from Michigan
State University and his Master's degree from Cal Tech in
mechanical engineering.
He has worked at General Motors since
1959 in the research laboratories, Fuels and Lubricants
Department, on atmospheric pollution, auto emissions and
fuel-related projects. He has been head of the Department
since 1972.
MR. COLUCCI Thank you, Graham.
I would like to say that I thank
Graham for the opportunity to speak once again before what
must be about the fifth or sixth meeting of the Methanol
Marching and Chowder Society, and I'm sure we will have addi-
tional meetings of this group as we try and further de.c ir.<:
what to do with methanol.
The talk I'm going to give you this
afternoon is a shortened version of the talk we presented
at the Methanol Conference at Henniker last summer. Thst
talk was presumably entitled "An Automotive Manufacturer's
Outlook on Methanol," but I think a much better title would
be "Does Methanol Give Your Car a Kick in the Gas?"
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I would like t.o get on to the first
slide if I this is a brief outline of what I would like
to discuss today. We have programs at the General Motors
Research. Laboratories relating to single-cylinder engine,
studies with pure methanol, mimical studies with methanol-
gasoline blends, and some work looking at the octane
quality of methanol-gasoline blends.
Then I'll try to give you some explana-
tion of the results and some concluding comments.
I might mention that our vehicle
studies are going to be reported at the S.A.E. meeting
next February at Detroit. I'm sure you are all familiar
with these physical properties and I will only show three
of them because they are very important in looking at the
results that you obtain with methanol.
The first one is the stoichiometric
air-flow ratio, which, as I am sure you recognize, is
considerably different from that for gasoline. It's about
6 1/2 to 1 for methanol as opposed to 14 1/2 14.7 to 1
for gasoline. The density of the two fluids is quite similar;
however, methanol is slightly heavier than gasoline.
There is separation. Methanol will
go to the bottom.
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The final one is the heating value
of the two fuels. As has been discussed, methanol is about
half that of gasoline.
First, we would like to get single-
cylinder engine studies with pure methanol. I'm going to
have here cells slotted for various parameters versus
equivalence ratios, where greater than 1 is rich, less than
1 is lean.
Regarding our results (inaudible)
for power and thermal efficiency you can see the methanol
stuff, which is the dotted lines in all the cases, for
methanol the power was slightly higher than for gasoline
and the efficiency was also slightly higher.
The other interesting point, you will
see it on all these curves, is that methanol will operate
considerably leaner than gasoline. This engine was out to
about .6 and gasoline was out to about .85.
This is a curve for nitric oxide
emissions with indolene and methanol and, once again, there
are two significant points. The first, as I hare already
mentioned, is that the methanol operates considerably leaner
and, second, as that equivalence ratio shows, the NOx
emissions for methanol are considerably less than those for
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indolene.
If you want to run real lean with
methanol, you can get very low nitric oxide emissions
compared to what you can get from a hydrocarbon fuel.
This graph shows the carbon monoxide
emissions obtained with methanol and with indolene, and you
can see there is essentially no difference. I might mention
that all this data was obtained at the test emission shown
in the upper right-hand corner. This was with a CFR test
engine.
This is one that addresses itself
to the unburned fuel emissions with either methanol or
with indolene. There has been considerable discussion on
how you should report unburned fuel. You have got methanol,
we learned,, from some studies with the gas chromatograph
most of the emissions from pure methanol are methanol.
However, there is some hydrocarbon emissions also. We are
looking at the emissions from methanol, using gas
chromatographic techniques and with heated and nonheated
flame ionization detectors.
We have come to the conclusion that
a nonheated flame ionization detector just doesn't give
you the right answers because we lose too much of the
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methanol in the system. It falls out of every nook and
cranny that has a low temperature, especially in the water
cracks.
You look at this one. The results
shown here in terms of unburnecl fuel there is considerably
more methanol than there is considerably more unburned
fuel in the exhaust with methanol than there is from indolene.
However, that fact, per se, should not be very upsetting.
The key issue is: What is the effect of methanol when it
gets into the atmosphere? What is its reactivity? Host of
the information that I have seen indicates that methanol is
not a very reactive species once it gets into the atmosphere.
So even though it is shown here that methanol provides a lot
more unburned fuel than a hydrocarbon fuel, the result, when
it gets into the atmosphere, might not be as bad as pointed
out by this figure.
This contains a summary of our results
with methanol in the single-cylinder engine. You can see
at the same equivalence ratio carbon monoxide emissions are
about the same. Nitric oxide emissions are considerably
less with methanol than with endolene. The hydrocarbon
really, this should be unburned fuel emissions are
considerably greater with methanol. The power was slightly
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greater with methanol. The thermal efficiency was comparable.
If you go to operation at the lean
limit, methanol and indolene were equivalent. Nitric oxide
was considerably less with methanol than with indolene.
Unburned fuel was considerably greater with methanol than
with indolene. Power was slightly less with methanol than
with indolene. The thermal efficiency was greater with
methanol than with indolene.
Now I would like to get into our
vehicle studies with methanol-gasoline blends. This indicates
our program. I'm only going to discuss certain items that
I show here. We are evaluating methanol-gasoline blends in
production vehicles with the current emission control
systems. The data I'm going to report today are with
existing carburetion. We have also taken the same vehicle
and adjusted carburetion to what it would be in terms of
equivalence ratio with the methanol blends and we have also
adjusted it rich to get a comparison.
We are aLso carrying out a study of
methanol use, methanol-gasoline blends, their use, in a
cross-section of existing vehicles. We have gone.through
about 15 vehicles so far and I'm not going to report that
data today, but if anyone is interested, they can see me
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and I'll let them see the slide.
Finally, we have evaluated methanol
in a vehicle with a catalytic emission control system and
I will show you that information. The factors that we have
evaluated are emissions, fuel economy, drivability, performance
and, where we have seen operational problems, we have made a
note of these.
This is results of emissions, from a
1973 Oldsmobile with a 455 V-8 engine. The methanol was
10 percent methanol in unlesdad ' ne. These are the
results on a 1975 federal test procedure. You can see
carbon monoxide was reduced by about 48 percent; nitric oxide
was reduced by about 14 percent, and there was essentially
no change in the hydrocarbon emissions as measured en the
federal test procedure.
In this case, it is a nonheated flame
ionization detector. As I am sure you recognize, under
federal test procedure, the exhaust is highly diluted. There
is very little likelihood of any material falling out in the
traps.
These are results for fuel economy
measured on two different bases, one on a volume basis, the
second on an energy basis. The volume basis is miles per
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gallon on top, and, on the bottom is fuel economy in miles
per million BTU.
We have got results shown here for
four different schedules, a business district schedule that
we use at our proving grounds, 1975 federal test procedure,
a suburban schedule, and a highway schedule.
You can see on a volume basis in
general with this vehicle the fuel economy in miles per
gallon was anywhere from about 4 to 11 percent less with
methanol blend than it was with gasoline.
On the energy basis, the results were
different; it was almost a standoff. On the business
district, a standoff to about a 5 percent loss on the
highway schedule.
If one wants to extrapolate, it
appears that methanol did slightly worse the greater the
average speed of the test vehicle.
Here are results on drivability,
comparing various blends of methanol and gasoline with
100 percent gasoline. These were carried out at two
different temperatures. The first set was at 30 to 40
degrees Fahrenheit. The second set was at between 50 and
60 degrees.
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We have here plotted drivability
in terms of total weighted demerits. As you can see, as
more methanol is added to the gasoline, the drivability was
further impaired.. This drivability measurement was carried
out in a fashion very similar to the CRC standard drivability
measuring procedures. The result here, as most of the
results with the methanol, is primarily attributed, to the
leaning effect of the methanol on the carburetion. The
more methanol you are adding, in essence, the leaner the
carburetion and we all know that leaner carburetion leads
to worse drivability. You can also see from this chart that
the drivability, with 10 percent methanol, the lower tempera-
ture was worse than it was at the higher temperature. We
all know that drivability gets worse as the temperature
gets lower.
Here are some results on vehicle
performance with 10 percent methanol and gasoline compared
to gasoline, and on the far left we have a wide open throttle
acceleration. You can see under those conditions it was
essentially no change in the acceleration time from zero
to 60 miles per hour with gasoline and with 10 percent
methanol and gas. However, when we go to some part-throttle
acceleration, in this case constant manifold vacuum acceleratior
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from 25 to 60 miles per hour, there was a penalty with the
methanol blend. This penalty got worse as the vacuum
increased.
Here are results with a'car with a
catalytic converter. This was a prototype system in a 1974
vehicle. You can see here the emissions on the left-hand
side on the federal test procedure. The CO, even with the
converter system, was reduced by about 40 percent. NOx
was reduced by about 15 percent, and the hydrocarbons, once
again, were essentially unchanged.
I think results with catalytic converter
systems with any vehicle representing a 1975 and future model
car are the ones that we should really pay much attention to.
As I'll point out later in the talk, by the time we get
around to using methanol as an automotive fuel, if we ever
do get there, the vehicle population will exist mainly of
vehicles which are being produced this year and which have
not yet been produced. So the effects with methanol should
be dependent on how methanol reacts in those vehicles and
not those vehicles that make up the population as it exists
today.
As far as fuel economy is concerned,
you see the results,for two different schedules, a 19 75
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federal test procedure and a suburban cycle. In both cases
on a miles per gallon basis, the results of methanol were
lowered by about 5 percent, which is essentially what you
would expect based on a decrease in the hesting content of
the fuel when you add 10 percent methanol.
Here are a summary of the results
of the vehicle studies. These also relate tc some of the
studies which I haven't recorded on the cross-section of
existing vehicles, but in all cases carbon monoxide is
reduced. This is due to the leaning effect of the methanol.
On some of the cars that we tested, hydrocarbons was increased.
In some cases, it was decreased. The same thing is true with
oxides of nitrogen. This is, once again, explainable due
to the methanol effects on air-fuel ratio.
If you have a car which is initially
carbureted quite rich, you add methanol, you lean it somewhat,
you can be going up the nitric oxide curve; therefore, get
increased nitric oxide measurements. If it is carbureted
lean and you are going down the nitric oxide curve as you
add methanol, you are going to get lower NOx emissions.
The same thing is true with hydro-
carbons. It depends on where the car was initially carbureted,
what the effect of adding methanol would be.
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Basic fuel economy was generally
reduced in proportion to the energy content in the "blend
and the reductions appear to be greater as the average
driving speed increases. This may just be due to the
effect that as the average speed and load on the vehicle
increase, you get back into more of the power enrichment
circuit in the carburetor and, therefore, you are going to
a richer operation more frequently with methanol blends than
you would with pure gasoline.
As far as drivability is concerned,
it was impaired in essentially all the vehicles we tested
and it was impaired greater with *73 and '74 model vehicles
than with previous years' vehicles. This is generally
because those vehicles were carbureted leaner than older
vehicles. As far as performance is concerned, the full-
throttle acceleration was unaffected and part-throttle
accelerations were slightly impaired.
Now, let's get back to a question which
has been addressed by some of the previous speakers. That's
the octane quality of methanol and methanol-gasoline blends.
Published numbers on research octane are generally about
106. In the published information on the motor octane number
as given in one of the previous API publications, it was 92.
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But I show that there with a question mark because you c?.i- '1.
measure the motor octane quality of methanol using the
standard ASTM techniques because of methanol's very high
heat of vaporization.
With the standard technique, you cannot
get enough fuel into the methanol to vaporize it. So you
have to go to a different technique and what that number
means as compared back to gasoline or another fuel, I really
don 1t know.
The thing that really counts, we'll
get to that, is how methanol reacts in an automobile. Here
is data on the research and motor octane quality of various
methanol blends and gasoline, going- from zero percent, which
is pure gasoline, to 30 percent, and these are for two
different commercial 91 and 94 research octane unleaded
gasoline. You can see with both of these gasolines the
research octane number depreciated much more than the motor
octane number.
Recent model vehicles especially like
the taste of motor octane number much more than they do the
research octane number. I think you have to consider the
motor octane results much more than the research octane
results in evaluating the octane improvement with methanol.
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The real issue lies -- these are
measurements made in a CFR engine, using the standard ASTM
technique. They are not measurements made in an auto dealer.
What counts is how methanol reacts when it's used in an
automobile and, in this case, it's the road octane number
of the fuel for use in a vehicle that will tell.
I have added information on the road
octane number with methanol blends to the information on
research and octane motor octane number from the previous
slide. You can see with this vehicle, which was the 1973
Olclsmobile that we mentioned in the previous results, the
motor octane number only went up about one and a half numbers
and it would appear to maximize at about 10 percent methanol
and gasoline. I must caution you that this is a result from
one vehicle only and we need considerably more information
on many other vehicles to come up with a final determination
on how much methanol will help octane quality. But based
on this information, there does not appear to be a very
significant effect when adding methanol to gasoline as in
terms of the vehicle's response to that fuel.
This is a quick summary of the octane
studies with methanol. As I mentioned, the motor octane
number of methanol is not well defined. Methanol addition
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increases research octane number much more than motor
octane number. Based on this one car we ran, the road
octane number may be maximized at about 10 percent methanol
in gasoline.
Here are the overall conclusions
from our vehicle work to date. As you recognized, this is
all with 10 percent methanol in gasoline. The effects are
mainly attributable to the leaning of the air-fuel ratio.
CO is reduced. Hydrocarbon and NOx effects uncertain because
they depend on the base carburetion of the vehicle. There
do not appear to be any fuel economy benefits. Drivability
is impaired and octane benefits are questionable.
There are also some potential vehicle
operational problems that have to be addressed. I think
maybe Bob Lindquist is going to address some of these:
the cold weather operation, especially if water gets into the
fuel; could lead to problems. If there is separation, the
first fuel picked up by the system is pure methanol. There
are also material compatibility problems which have to be
addressed in terms of corrosion of the fuel system components
and problems with some of the elastomers used in the fuel
system.
Finally, one problem that the petroleum
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is demonstrated by this curve shown here, which plots the
(inaudible) fraction of the total car population versus
vehicle age. You can see that approximately 55 percent of
the vehicles are five years of age or younger and 90 percent
are ten years of age or younger.
Really, even more important than this
is if you plot cumulative miles driven versus vehicle age.
Newer vehicles drive more miles per year than older vehicles,
and for vehicles five years of age or younger on a vehicle
miles driven basis, it comes out about1 65 or 70 percent of
the total miles driven are driven by vehicles less than fi've
years of age.
So I say this gets back, once again^
to the point that the vehicles of real concern are those that
are being produced now and which will be produced in the
future.
In conclusion, I think at this stage
of the game we should not decide whether or not to use
methanol-gasoline blends. We need considerably more work
before the proper use of methanol is decided. We may decide
that it is much better off to use methanol as a fuel for
stationary power systems, where a hundred percent methanol
in vehicles may turn out to be a better fuel.
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In the interim, work on methanol
generation from all sources should continue, as well as work
on hydrocarbons from coal and oil shale. Uses will be found
of all these fuels. The final results, economic and
environmental conditions, will decide which fuel will be
favored.
If anyone has any questions, I will
be glad to try to answer them.
Yes, sir?
VOICE: (inaudible), Ford Motor Company.
I noticed in your engine study that
you have been very careful to match up equivalence ratios
with blends and run (inaudible) and when you came to vehicle
studies, it seemed like you just took an existing distributor
calibration and (inaudible) carburetor and there was no
attempt to bring up the methanol blend to what you would
call a more optimal tuning of that particular vehicle, and
I think that presents somewhat of a distorted picture.
First of all, your thermal efficiency
data on your engine (inaudible) showed a better thermal
efficiency than the two comparables and you have got a
detriment in fuel economy, even on an energy basis. So there
is really no reason for suspecting that would be the case
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uritess you slacken the "blend to an existing calibration and
say, "Here, look at the results."
So many different attempts have been
made to compare apples to apples rather than
MR. COLUCCI: As I mentioned, we
are also running tests we have run tests to readjust
carburetion and the timing with> methanol to what it should
optimize it, but I think in the real world you cannot expect
that to happen because you cannot expect a hundred million
vehicles to be readjusted. That's one hell of a job.
VOICE: I don't think we are talking
about a hundred million vehicles readjusted. I mean, I think
what we are talking about is phasing in something
MR. COLUCCI: You a re phasing in
VOICE: We are looking at the potential
of it, not for retrofitting. I mean, it's like the cars that
are being produced today that take only nonleaded gasoline.
You Know, you are not talking about
MR. COLUCCI: You are phasing in
you can do this in many ways and I am sure the SLI study
is going to concentrate on this, but you could phase in a
pure methanol system.
What we have got there in the single-
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cylinder engine data was all a hundred percent methanol.
The vehicle data with 10 percent methanol and gasoline, those
are two different kinds of systems. That's why they were
run that way.
VOICE: Well, I guess my basic
comment is I think that the vehicle comparison I don't
think really is valid. I'm not a proponent for or against
methanol, one way or another. I just don't think there is
a valid vehicle comparison, although I can't knock your
basic premise or going in hypothesis about existing vehicle
population, but I think, you know, if you had run a different
calibration, a more optimal one, that would be a little more
worthwhile.
MR. COLUCCI: i am sure if you run,
if you optimize the vehicle for the 10 percent methanol and
gasoline blends, you would get different results.
MR. PASTERNAK: Al Pasternak (inaudible)
Jerry, you showed some data comparing
emissions with the catalyst, comparing methanol and gasoline
and, if I remember correctly, the CO was low with methanol and
unburned hydrocarbons was up and octane was up, and NOx was
about the same.
Suppose you were to compare unburned
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hydrocarbons from just gasoline and look at the different
components of gasoline? How much is known about the relative
ease of oxidizing saturated hydrocarbons, olefins, aromatics?
Is the catalyst as effective with one as with another, or
does some slip through?
VOICE: (inaudible).
VOICE: Maybe I can speak (inaudible).
We have done quite a bit of work (inaudible) from Exxon.
We have done quite a bit of work
with compositional relationship with respect to fuel
(inaudible) in a variety of different systems, but it appears
that the catalyst selectively removes the (inaudible),
aromatics and the olefins are also essentially removed. We
end up with a predominance of methane (inaudible) from
gasoline.
We have also done some studies in
methanol-gasoline blends. In this case, you don't see that
much of an effect between the methanol-gasoline blends and
gasoline. The catalyst does selectively remove the (inaudible)
VOICE: (inaudible) Joe, I always
worry when my results differ from GM Research, but one point
in particular on your unburned fuel emissions on your single-
cylinder work. You show consistently higher unburned fuel
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emissions with methanol and in most cylinder work we get
the reversal of this effect. Now, is there anything about
the quench zone in this single-cylinder or anything that
would lead you to believe that you might be measuring an
anomaly here on the unburned fuel?
MR. COLUCCI: Does anyone have any
feel for this on using the single-cylinder engine for
unburned hydrocarbon emissions? Has anyone had any
experience with it?
VOICE: I would support your position.
We used gas chromatograph analysis and we did find lower
hydrocarbons with methanol
VOICE: You find it consistently lower
with methanol.
VOICE: Are you accounting for the
unburned methanol also? That was grams of unburned fuel;
it wasn't grams of hydrocarbon that I have plotted. That's
unburned hydrocarbons and unburned methanol.
VOICE: It includes methanol.
VOICE: I think this is one area that
deserves a lot more attention because I don't think anyone
is on firm footing with respect to determining the emissions
of unburned fuel from methanol and methanol blends.
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MR. HAGEY: I agree. As_ many of you
here know, Dick Hum the Bureau of Mines, sponsored a
Conference in Denver, the 17th of September, where the subject
was strictly the measurement, the methodologies for methanol,
methanol-gasoline blends, and there is a great deal of
uncertainty as to the optimum ways to go about measuring
the products of combustion.
Are there any more questions? Yes?
VOICE: Here is another comment.
Due to the fact that the combustion characteristics of
methanol hydrocarbons we are familiar with it is also
possible that the design of the engine and the time, location
of the spark and entire carburetion system might have to be
redesigned and re-evaluated for that particular fuel.
I am directly responsible for developing
(inaudible) and switched to methanol and draw a conclusion
exclusively on that basis because the combustion characteristic
of methanol is so much different than it is of octane. That,
on top of the uncertainties on the measurements and the
various conclusions reached by different (inaudible), I think
it points out to the difficulty in making decisions on this
point. I think there is much more to be done (inaudible).
MR. HAGEY: Thank you.. Do we have
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any more questions or comments? Yes, Al?
VOICE: I have one comment on the
question of measurement. I'm not an instrumentalist, so
you went into detail a little over my head. Livermoore
has a small contract with the EPA for the development of
a microwave technique. I think it was specifically directed
toward hydrogen and formaldehyde (inaudible) and the people
at Livermoore, Larry Rubin of the College believed that it's
also immediately applicable not only to formaldehyde but to
methanol molecule (inaudible).
MR. HAGEY: Any further questions?
Yes, Bob?
MR. DUNN: Bob Dunn. Is the Bureau
of Mines work something you measured on '75 cars?
VOICE: Yes.
VOICE: (inaudible).
VOICE: Getting some of the answer,
the unanswered answering some of the unanswered questions
that were alluded to by Joe?
VOICE: Yes, yes, that's correct.
MR. HAGEY: Let's move along.
Our next speaker is Dr. Robert
Lindquist from Chevron Research.
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Dr. Lindquist has his Master's degree
from the University of Minnesota, his Ph.D. from the
University of Berkeley, California.
DR. LINDQUIST: I would like to run
over briefly with you this afternoon the work we did at
Chevron Research starting in 1971 for about three years,
at which time, as you recall, 1971, lead was being phased
out of fuels and we were looking for an alternative method
to up the octane level of the gasoline fuel without lead.
At that time, it looked like a
possibility of very cheap methanol from the Persian Gulf
flare gas and that was one of the impetuses to look at
where methanol could fit in in place of tetraethyllead for
high octane fuel
Of course, since then the economic
situation has changed quite a bit and we are at a situation
where we are looking at rather high-cost materials to make
methanol, with the exception of garbage, which Bob Sheehan
described very well. That's a case of really high-grading
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something that's negative value.
I think one thing, one number that's
worthwhile keeping in mind is what happens if ycu start out
with coal and you want to make (inaudible). You really have
two routes, two general routes. You can make a distillate
and that consumes about 35 percent of the BTU value of a
ton of coal, producing a distillate, and then you can go
ahead and process that in the automotive fuel or you can
make CO and hydrogen and then make methanol. That consumes
60 percent of the BTU value in a ton of coal. So methanol
is really a very high-cost material to make from coal,
both in terms of our natural resources and cost, and I
think Bob Shefihan had an excellent presentation. I will
differ with him on one point, and that is the value of
methanol per gallon. Gasoline right now at our refinery
gate, the average price is 28 cents a gallon. Methanol is
equivalent -- one gallon of methanol, two gallons
excuse me. One gallon of gasoline equals two gallons of
methanol. We are really talking about 14 cents a gallon
for the value of methanol and you can have some tax adjust-
ments, but you still have to transport twice the bulk to
get the same BTU value.
Well, let's look at the first slide.
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I think we can leave the lights about halfway up.
This is some of the same deal that
you have seen about three different ways. We have some
degrees in centigrade for people who like that instead of
Fahrenheit. It's been well pointed out that the density of
methanol is slightly more dense than gasoline and, of course,
in the water separation problem in your carburetor, you do
have a water separation problem. In a methanol-gasoline
blend, the first thing that's going to go into the engine
will be methanol and that's where you get the stall-out
due to water separation in the carburetor.
The lower heating value in calories
per gram is about half that of gasoline. Then we come to
latent heat of vaporization. We have this factor of a
little over approximately 3 1/2, so you have to have extra
heat in the induction system to get the methanol into the
cylinders on a cold day.
The next one, the boiling point of
methanol, 64 degrees centigrade, 65. That brings up the
problem, you really have a single component system rather
than a widespread system in terms of the boiling point and
we'll see that when we come to the Reed vapor pressure problem.
The Reed vapor pressure, for those of you who aren't applied
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engineologists, it's an arbitrary vapor pressure measurement
at approximately 100 degrees Fahrenheit in a certain type
of container to visualize the vaporization of gasoline in
the carburetor. The Heed vapor pressure of methanol is
about a third of that of gasoline or a third to equal it.
I will show you how that happens when you start blending it
in another car.
Then we come down to the research and
motor octane ratings, which we have heard quite a bit about.
We can pass that slide.
What we have here is the distillation
temperature, plotted as the abscissa and the ordinate here
is the percent recovered on a standard ASTO distillation
curve. The smooth curve with triangles is an unleaded
gasoline; the dotted curve is the same gasoline containing
10 percent methanol, and you notice the large amount that
boils off at a much lower temperature, which is principally
the methanol coming off.
Methanol, of course, being one of the
most hydrogen-bonded of organic liquids, very close to water,
when it's dissolved in gasoline those hydrogen bonds are
broken up and you get a much higher vapor pressure than you
would predict from Raoult's law.
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The next slide shows the calculation
for Raoult's law for methanol and gasoline mixtures. It's
effectively the sum of the mole fracture of two components
would give us the Reed vapor pressure as shown by that line
labeled Raoult's law. Up above, we have the actual Reed
vapor pressure. So in blending methanol with gasoline, the
refinery would effectively have to back out the high
volatility propane and butane and use the methanol vapor
pressure as the like fraction and then you have consideration
on the distribution system, that engine, to be sure you get
the methanol to the, the distribution to the cylinders,
unless you are using something like a fuel injection system.
We used a series of 1967 and 1971
cars and here we compare methanol, a 10 percent blend with
no methanol and research motor and road octane. As you can
see, the road octane is much closer to the motor octane.
We get some blending values which perhaps can be disregarded
as too significant since it varies significantly as to the
aromatic character of the gasoline.
We had cars in a fuel economy
operation for about six months, put on about 5000 miles,
and we looked at the fuel economy with 10 percent methanol.
The overall number here, we got about a 3 1/2 percent drop
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in fuel economy, whereas at 10 Dercent methanol it was
strictly on the BTU basis, we would get about 5 percent.
So very close to what Joe Colucci is showing. We get a
slightly better fuel economy than predicted on the average,
and we attribute most of that to a leaning out of the
carburetors.
Once again, these were 1971 cars
which are quite a bit richer than current 1974 cars.
We ran a drivability test where
these are. now the reverse of what Joe had. These are
drivability demerits and we found that operating at 70
degrees 40 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit, that we just about
doubled the drivability demerits with 10 percent methanol,
and when we cool it down to 25 Fahrenheit, the demerits
jumped up as much as a factor of 8. So these cars, once
again, we're looking at the proHem of putting methanol in
existing gasoline fuel, where you had to take what you came.
You didn't have the option, as Seattle is talking about, of
using a hundred percent methanol fleet.
Here is some more exhaust emission
test data, and I think, in light of Joe's comments, you
might look at the lower half. We had air injection in a
catalytic reactor. Our unburned fuel, which we are using
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GC for determining the grams of methanol, it looked about
a standoff of gasoline. G stands for gasoline up there
and M for methanol. This is a hundred percent methanol
compared to a hundred percent gasoline. Our main drop is
we got a very significant drop in hydrogen oxides. That
was the impressive one with methanol.
The major problems we saw which led
us to a hundred percent methanol when we looked at these
blends and convinced us that we couldn't put methanol as a
blend in gasoline and as a fuel supplier, stand the problems
the motorist would have, were in the water separation
problems. What we have as the abscissa here is the parts
per million of water to what I call haze versus methanol in
volume (inaudible).
What we did was took varying concentra-
tions of methanol and gasoline, used this in little sealed
vials with a rubber septum and titrated with water. As the
technician shot in microliters of water, he would shake it
and would observe a haze point which, in about a hd.f of hour,
you would get the haze separation. And you really have to
get up to about 30 or 40 percent methanol before you get to
what we consider a safe level of water tolerance, namely
about 2000 parts per million.
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Now, we. take this 2000 parts per
million based on some experiments where we observed the
breathing of a gas tank about a quarter full in the humidity
of Berkeley, California, over a period of a week. We
figured some guy might let his car set out over a week and
we would see the diurnal breathing of the gasoline tank
wherein the engine heated up and you expelled some fumes
and brought some more in and we figured that if it could get
up to 2000 parts per million, we would be in good shape.
Well, that blend of methanol, of course, was inoperable
without carburetor adjustment, so we decided to take a look
and see if we could find an emulsifier. The clothing
industry has had a lot of experience with emulsifiers for
dry cleaning stores where detergents are ionic and they are
carried in an emulsifier to clean the clothes and in oil
well drilling areas, so I talked to my acquaintances in the
company in this area and we screened about 80 different
emulsifiers, trying to find one that would do it economically
to hold 30, 40 percent methanol in gasoline, and we couldn't.
Our upper criterion was that we didn't want to use over a
third of the amount of methanol as emulsifier and I guess if
I had done a little more thinking before I had started, I
would have realized that effectively you are asking an
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emulsifier, which in these dry cleaning fluids, you put in
a mole for mole basis with water, you do the same thing
for water and methanol and the methanol molecule appears
like water molecules in emulsifier, so we were just soaking
up the emulsifier in handling the methanol and we couldn't
handle the water. It turns out the cheapest way we could
see was to blend higher alcohol. As we got up to tertiary
butyl alcohol and have about a third of total alcohol, you
can easily handle those 2000 parts per million of water
with the total alcohol concentration of 15 percent.
Unfortunately, tertiary butyl alcohol is a rather expensive
alcohol.
Our next problem, we said, well, we
can shift to a hundred percent methanol and we have been
running all our fleet tests out of things like outboard
motor cans and 5-gallon cans that were galvanized, tin-
lined.
We started using a fuel injection
Volvo and put the methanol in the gasoline tank and in a
week or less we found we couldn't operate the vehicle.
What happened is the turn plates, the 90 percent lead,
10 percent tin of this fuel tank was attacked and it was
attacked particularly rapidly in this fuel injected Volvo
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because it has an in-line electric fuel pump. So we were
getting about 10 microamps leakage current which accentuated
the attack and we effectively dissolved all the turn plate.
This is a view of the iron magnified by about a factor of
this was about 200 here where we have gone through the
white lead oxide and we are down, chewing away at the steel.
The principal corrosion problems
we saw were, as I say, in the turn plate. We checked our
gasoline tanks. We had about 10 percent corrosion after
six months' exposure in a year-old vehicle and we found,
we started testing parts of metal. The aluminum magnesium
is particularly susceptible. This shot is a fuel tank of
a chain saw, and it was used up in the upper Northwest where
an individual put our methanol in the gasoline to prevent,
keep the gasoline from freezing in the fuel line, and he ate
his way through the magnesium aluminum alloy in abQut 12
months of use. So there is some engines that are using
magnesium aluminum parts in the fuel pumps and this would
have to be looked at.
Now, this wouldn't be a problem if
we designed the vehicle to use a hundred percent methanol.
You would take precautions to set them up, but as a fuel
supplier you can't watch a fuel without assuming some liability
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and if even there is only one vehicle out of a hundred,
that's rather expensive to replace their fuel system.
That's it.
MR. HAGEY: Do we have any questions?
VOICE: (inaudible). I would like to
go back to your comment on the (inaudible). It turns up
that this is really a production problem that can be easily
overcome with the tailoring of methanol production catalyst
(inaudible) so that its unavailability or high cost of
higher alcohol can be overcome within the (inaudible) and
this is really a tailored product, depending on how you want
to use it. (inaudible).
DR. LINDQUIST: I have heard some
discussion of that and I would sure like to see some costs
from Vulcan-Cincinnati
DR. LINDQUIST: I have talked to
Ted Wentworth several times on this, and he never has pro-
duced the numbers for me, but I would like to see it.
VOICE: You were saying T butyl
is a good blending agent.
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DR. LINDQUIST: Yes.
VOICE: And, secondly, that it's
expensive. I think this depends on who you are and what
you are making. Arco is now putting 5 percent T butyl?
I believe in some of their gasoline some places just to
get rid of it. So one man's feast is another man's famine.
Have you heard any reports on how
they like it, how does it go?
DR. LINDQUIST: Gentlemen, I don't
VOICE: Because that's really sort
of a foot in the door of alcohol, to see how it goes.
DR. CASSIDY: Phil Cassidy, with the
City of Seattle. I was interested in the pure fuel, pure
methanol emissions data you had. The car without the
catalytic converter was operated stoichiometrically and
also lean, but the one with the catalytic converter was
operated stoichiometrically and rich, and I wondered why
you have chosen that. Specifically, why you have chosen the
rich operation, because that's, as we know, the methanol
will burn considerably leaner than gasoline and I would
think you would look at the lean side. I
DR.LINDQUIST: Well, on the catalytic
converters, generally you run rich so you have enough to heat
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your catalyst up and that's we used the same setup for
both gasoline and methanol.
VOICE: It's not too fair, I don't
think, again in the sense of the Ford question, it's not
too fair, especially when you are looking at pure fuel
vehicles where you know you have got to make adjustments
anyway. I can see the argument for a planned vehicle,
compare two vehicles. Not no adjustments made, but in
a pure fuel vehicle, I it's not too fair.
MR. HAGEY: Mr. Adelman?
MR. ADELMAN: Henry Adelman, from the
University of Santa Clara. Have you actually observed a
separation in any of your vehicles?
DR. LINDQUIST: Yes. In the six-car
blends right there, we had three separations when we had
to go out and haul the guy in. We had provisions so we
could easily open up and get at the carburetor aid one
particular failure that sticks in my mind, because I had
the President of Chevron Research putting around there and
he called me up and said, "Come on over and get me. I'm
in San Francisco." So that sort of stuck in my mind. I had
to go
VOICE: Do you have any exhaust
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emission data from your blend vehicles?
DR. LINDQUIST: Yes, we do. We
should be presenting that at the S.A.E. meeting and this
information I presented and some more will be in Chem Tech
in a couple of months.
VOICE: Well, in general, what have
been your findings?
DR. LINDQUIST: In general, we get
a reduction of NOx, almost proportionate to the amount of
methanol we have in there.
VOICE: In the emissions data again,
was the Reed vapor pressure controlled in any of these
experiments?
DR. LINDQUIST: Yes, they were
comparable.
VOICE: That seems to be a .very
critical in order to get reasonable comparability to the
gasoline and methanol.
DR. LINDQUIST: Right, we had to back
off the butane and bring it up.
I think Dr. Wigg will say a little bit
about that.
VOICE: Bob, what was the aromatic
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content (inaudible) you were mixing with?
DR. LINDQUIST: It was about 35, 40
percent.
VOICE: We could have really put the
very high on benzine. We get a lot with methanol.
VOICE: You did.
DR. LINDQUIST: Yes.
MR. HAGEY: Thank you. Bob.
Our next speaker is Dr. Eric Wigg
from Exxon Research Corporation. I apologize to Dr. Wigg.
When we sent out the announcement of the agenda, we called
him "John" Wigg. I told him we would make the correction
today.
Dr. Wigg has his Bachelor's degree
and his Ph.D. from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
He has been with Exxon for the last, I believe it's, seven
years. Is that correct, Eric? And has been involved in a
number of projects dealing with auto emissions, one of which
has led to excuse me one of which involved methanol-
gasoline blends. The current project he is involved in is
sulfate emissions from catalyst-equipped cars.
DR. WIGG: Thank you, Jack.
I would like to briefly cover some of
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the work we have done at Exxon in the area of methanol-
gasoline blends. If I could come to the first slide, please
somebody take it on themselves to we were interested in
obtaining information in the three areas shown here: fuel
economy, exhaust emissions and product quality.
I'll say at the outset that the fuel
economy and emissions data are in good agreement with what
Joe Coliicci presented a few moments ago. Some of our data
will be appearing in the Science article which will be
published in the near future, and we are also planning to
present a paper on this subject at the S.A.E. meeting in
Toronto next week. So today I would like to just touch
briefly on some of the highlights of our work.
Part of our studies, looking at the
fuel economy and emissions program, involved comparison of
two fuels, a base blend which was a typical unleaded gasoline,
and a 15 percent methanol blend. This methanol blend was
adjusted to give the same Reed vapor pressure as the base
blend and, as has been mentioned here a couple of times,
from a fuel economy and emissions point of view, it's
important to match vapor pressure because differing vapor
pressure can influence emissions presumably as well as fuel
economy.
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The program that we followed involved
the use of three different cars. We chose a '67, a '73 and
a catalyst-equipped '73. The selection was based on a desire
to cover the span of carburetion normally found on the road
today. The air-fuel ratio considerations are important with
respect to determining the effects of methanol on the fuel
economy and emissions.
Why don't we turn down that amplifier
a little bit? I seem to be getting feedback here.
Thank you. I'll just speak a little
louder.
The data shown here, the fuel economy
measurements, and these were obtained using the 1975 federal
test procedure, I have given the effect of methanol in terms
of on a volume basis as well as on an energy basis and
as far as an energy basis is concerned, you can see the 1967
car, which is with its relatively rich carburetion, gave about
an 8 percent increase? the 1973 car and the catalyst-equipped
car showed very little change.
Now, these results are in excellent
agreement with theory, if we assume that the change or lack
of change is due to methanol's influence on the stoichiometry.
This slide shows the general
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relationship 'between fuel economy and air-fuel ratio. You
can see that the maximum fuel economy with respect to air-
fuel ratios occurs slightly on the net lean side. The arrows
there refer to the average air-fuel ratio observed with the
1967 car and the 1973 car. Because of the air injection on
the catalyst-equipped car, we weren't, we didn't make
comparable measurements with that system, but it was adjusted
to run slightly richer than the 1973 car. So its position
on that curve would be just slightly to the left of the '73
car.
Now, adding 15 percent methanol to
gasoline causes about a one number increase in the air-fuel
ratio, effective increase in the air-fuel ratio. So the
1967 car would be expected to slide up the curve somewhat.
The "73 vehicle would move along, but because of its
starting position# you would not expect to see much change
in the fuel economy.
The catalyst-equipped car would also
be about the same as the '73 car.
Now, the results that we found were
in excellent agreement with this treatment, with the '67 car,
on an energy basis, giving an improvement. The other two
cars showed very little effect.
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Methanol's effect on emissions, in
general, also followed the expected trend based oh air-fuel
ratio considerations. This plot shows generalized relation-
ships between CO, hydrocarbons and NOx and the airrfuel
ratio. So the 1967 car, with its rich carburetion, again
with the addition of methanol, the CO would be expected to
drop sharply. Hydrocarbons would be expected to drop some-
what, and NOx would be expected to increase because it's on
the left of the maximum.
The '73 car would be expected to
give lesser decreases in CO and hydrocarbons on an absolute
basis, and NOx emissions would probably not be expected to
change too much. I'll just quickly go through the data.that
we observed.
With the '67 car, it was definitely
a big drop in CO emissions. Percentage-wise, a fairly big
drop in the '73 (inaudible) also. However, on an absolute
basis, it was smaller than that.
The catalyst-equipped car we observed
to show a slight increase in CO emissions and this we.
attributed to somewhat poorer drivability during the cold-
start portion of the test. This gave somewhat higher emis-
sions in the first bag before the catalyst warmed up.
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However, you can see the levels are extremely low and I am
sure this difference vouldn 11 be environmentally significant.
As far as hydrocarbons are concerned,
again a significant decrease in the 1967 car. The '73 car
showed no change, and again a small increase with the
catalyst-equipped car.
NOx emissions- as predicted, the
'67 car showed an increase, while the two newer cars showed
a decrease. Now, this decrease is somewhat bigger than we
would have expected based on the relationship of the NOx
curve. It's possible that the effect may be due to latent
heat of the vaporization of the methanol, a somewhat lower
heat flame temperature.
We looked at aldehyde emissions during
this study, and we did see a significant increase in aldehydes,
particularly with the older car. The methanol, one of the
oxidation products of methanol is formaldehyde, and we did
a study to determine the relative proportions of individual
aldehydes in the aldehyde fraction and, indeed, the increase
could be essentially all accounted for on the basis of
increased formaldehyde yields. So this is to be expected.
So from a both from a fuel
economy and an emissions point of view, it appears that any
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benefits in the area, in these two areas, would be pretty
well limited to the older, rich-operating cars and, in the
case of emissions, the benefits in the CO and tydrocarbon
area would be counterbalanced by an increase in the NOx
emissions and aldehyde emissions.
Turning now to look at the product
quality aspects, we would be particularly interested in three
areas.
Phase separation is
probably the most critical problem that one could face in
the field. There being a considerable amount of comment
on that already this afternoon, I don't plan to go into it
any further.
The question of volatility. It's
been mentioned that blending methanol into gasoline gives
very substantial increases in Reed vapor pressure as well
as the percent distilled at 158 degrees, which is the
front end portion of the gasoline. So the question arises:
What would the sharply increased volatility of these blends,
what effect would this have on vapor locking tendencies in
the field? Now, I want to give you some data that we
have obtained in this area in a moment.
The other area is drivability, and
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Joe Coliicci touched with this with the excessively lean
carburetion in some cases due to the methanol, creating
problems of hesitation and what's known as stretchiness,
lack of expected response to throttle movement. I won't be
touching on any data in this area.
As far as the volatility question
is concerned, we carried out a study where we looked at two
different ambient temperatures, 70 degrees Fahrenheit and
100 degrees Fahrenheit, in our controlled-temperature
facility. The program utilized eight different fuels.
Four were run at the lower temperature and four at the
higher temperature. Each group of four fuels consisted of
a base blend and three 15 percent methanol blends. One of
these was vapor lock index matched. In other words, the
vapor lock index of the fuel was matched to.that of the
base blend.
Now, vapor lock index is defined as
Read vapor pressure/ plus .13 times the percent distilled at
158. So by adding methanol to the gasdine, you get a very
large increase in the vapor lock index, because Reed vapor
pressure increases sharply and the percent off from 158 also
increases sharply.
So in order to match the vapor lock
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index of this first fuel in the. methanol blends, it was
necessary to back out a considerable portion of the front
end hydrocarbsons.
The second methanol blend was
matched with respect to Reed vapor pressure. This required
a less drastic tailoring of the fuel as far as backing out
front end hydrocarbons is concerned, and finally we looked
at a blend where there were no vapor pressure constraints,
just adding the methanol directly to the base blend.
This part of the program utilized
13 cars, model year varying from 1967 through 197 4.
This slide shows the tendency to
vapor lock or the incidence cf vapor lock problems with the
four different fuels at the two test temperatures. You can
see that there is a very large increase in the number of
problems observed with the fuel where the methanol is just
added directly to -the gasoline, and this was particularly
severe at the 10 0 degree Fahrenheit test temperature, as
you would expect.
The vapor lock problems were defined
as stalling during acceleration, or a hesitation and a
backfire, which caused a 25, greater than 25 percent increase
in acceleration time from 15 miles per hour to 7 0 miles, per
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hour under full throttle conditions.
So there is a very significant increase
in vapor lock tendencies and this suggests that if methanol
were to be used in gasoline, there would have to be some
adjustments made to the volatility to derive some-semblance
of customer satisfaction.
Now, this would have a marked
negative impact on methanol's role as a gasoline extender
because if you have to take something out in order to put
it in, then, this will detract from its role as such.
I have illustrated here what we have
had to do to obtain the test fuels that we used in this
study. In each case, of course, we are adding the equivalent
on a hydrocarbon equivalent basis, we are adding 7 percent
by adding 15 percent methanol because methanol is about
half the energy content of gasoline.
In the case of the VLI matched blend,
we had to take out 12 percent of the hydrocarbons, the butanes
and most of the pentanes, giving us a debit, actually, in
the available energy for gasoline fuel of 5 percent.
The RVP match, because of the less
severe change in the hydrocarbon composition, ended up with
a 2 percent debit and, of course, no constraints will give
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you the full 7 percent debit.
Now, these blends, of course, were
just two actually, an average of two blends in each case,
the 70 degree Fahrenheit blends and the 100 degree Fahrenheit
blends, and this gives you some idea of the magnitude of
the attack. We do, indeed, have to make some alterations
to the volatility of the fuel.
Now, the misplaced hydrocarbons,
of course, could be used in alternate applications, but if
the name of the game is to extend the gasoline supply, this
wouldn't be realized if we had to take these hydrocarbons
and use them for refinery fuel or for some other application.
By way of conclusion, then, we feel
that as far as fuel economy and emissions are concerned,
the data strongly support the fact that it does, indeed,
follow the stoichiometry. The results are interpretable
in terms of the leaning effect of methanol, and it appears
that significant benefits would only be realized for older
cars.
As far as product quality is
concerned, in addition to the phase separation and drivability
problems, this volatility factor could create a problem with
respect to methanol's role as an extender.
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Thank you.
MR. HAGEY: Do you have any questions?
VOICE: You said that your vapor lock
tests were run at full throttle acceleration, is that right?
DR. WIGG: Yes.
VOICE: And that you noticed an
increase in acceleration time.
DR. WIGG: Right.
VOICE: Well, why did you (inaudible)
to the lean (inaudible)?
DR. WIGG: It could be probably
just attributed to that, yes. We did part-throttle
accelerations also. I didn't give you those data.
VOICE: I can't separate the two.
DR. WIGG: Between vapor locking
and lean.
VOICE: Yes, not on that test.
DR. WIGG: Yes, there is a probability
that the leaning effect would contribute to the problem.
VOICE: You speak of this butane
that you are having to back off as being a problem, that
you could burn it as refinery fuel, but isn't this also one
of the components of LPG? Aren't we very short on LPG?
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It brings a high price, doesn't it?
DR. WIGG: Yes, there's a possibility
of
VOICE: The people who are dependent
on LPG in rural districts would be very Eflad to have it backed
out, I think.
DR. WIGG: Yes.
VOICE: But don't print it in the
finding paper.
DR. WIGG: Okay.
Yes?
VOICE: (inaudible). I have a
comment on it also. We often think that there are two routes
introducing methanol to the transportation system, one the
blend route and the other the neat methanol route, and the
problem has been identified with each, the problem of
excessive vapor pressure, vapor lock in the blend route,
and the neat methanol route, the problem of cold start.
One way to get around cold start
is to add butane. It's not very often that the juxtaposition
of two (inaudible) suggests the obvious solution, but when
alternate (inaudikie) with the butane, you have got to back
out a blend, put it into the neat cars, cars that are running
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on neat methanol, and maybe you can try both routes at the
same time when methanol becomes available.
DR. WIGG: It sounds kind of
complicated, but, yes, I guess there would be some merit
to that.
Yes?
VOICE: Another one that Vulcan-
Cincinnati is talking about, and acpLn this is one of these
-- solve two problems at once or you don't solve either,
and that is that it's very expensive to ship from the Far
East, very expensive to ship the liquid petroleum factions,
at $25 a ton for shipping costs, but if you are shipping a
lot of methanol, with 10 percent butane and pentane with it,
take it back out in this country and still ship it in standard
tankers rather than LPG tankers.
VOICE: I would suggest you examine
your vapor pressure data on those.
VOICE: Well, as I say, it depends
on which ones you are putting in and how much, but he says
5 or 10 percent methanol.
Do you think that's too much?
VOICE: I noticed (inaudible) the
vapor pressure curves, it is.
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VOICE: Well,, it's not my figures.
It's (inaudible).
VOICE: This energy consideration
that yoi mentioned at the end, I think you consider that to
be a detraction by the use of methanol, but it appears to
me, from the other data you presented, where you had, say,
for the catalytic converter-equipped car, a 2 percent increase
in energy consumption or a 2 percent decrease in energy
consumption. You are 2 percent better off there and then
you point out later on, when you balance the Reed vapor
pressure, which I assume you did NAP test the fuel
DR. WIGG: Yes.
VOICE: you said you did, and you
got another 2 percent that you saved from the light end that
you took off. So there's a total of 4 percent energy you
are saving by putting, by blending methanol with the gasoline.
DR. WIGG: Well, you are still using
the methanol.
VOICE: No, that's already in there.
You got the 7 percent energy added and 9 percent hydrocarbon
energy removed.
DR. WIGG: Yes.
VOICE: So that's the 2 percent that
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you gain there.
DR. WIGG: No, no. You show that
the car ran 2 percent better with the blend. I mean, you
are right. You have lost the overall fuel pool, but the
car ran 2 percent bettarwith the blend, so there is a total
4 percent energy savings. Two percent shows up the stuff
that you save, the butane or whatever you took off. The
2 percent shows up from the fact that your car runs a little
more smoothly. So there is a net 4 percent energy saving.
VOICE: (Inaudible).
DR. WIGG: Well, I can't argue with
that.
VOICE: I don't know whether adding
butane to methanol is going to work. Generally speaking,
the only reason why you put methanol in gasoline in the
first place is substantially aromatic time gap and it's
very insoluble (inaudible). It may not be a reasonable
thing to do, to add butane to methanol.
VOICE: I think A1 was pointing to
some of our work on that and we have looked at butane
concentrations in methanol up to 10 percent and if you look
at the plot, if you look at the phase diagram of methanol,
you will find that as you get above 90 percent methanol, you
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have a great deal of problems (inaudible), and water, and this
is the way we have attempted to get by with our cold-start
problem, by adding 2 or 3 percent butane which is necessary
to about 14 pound RVP, and we have had no compatibility
problems at all. We have (inaudible).
DR. WIGG: Yes, Max?
VOICE: You could also use pentane
for the same purpose and you could use some of the nitric
quantities there successfully.
MR. HAGEY: I think we are about out
of time, but I'm going to try to stick to the schedule. So
on to our last speaker, Mr. Richard Tillman from Continental
Oil Company. Dick has his Bachelor's and his Master's
degrees from Southern Methodist in Dallas, Texas. He has
been with Continental Oil Company for the past 21 years and
he is presently Associate Manager of Petroleum Products
Research, R&D.
Dick?
MR. TILLMAN: Thank you.
Rather than rehash some of the data
which some of you have heard at Henntker and which we have
submitted for an S.A.Ei paper to be held at Congress in
Detroit in February, I thought I would give you some
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up-to-the-minute work we have been doing and so I'll apologize
for the quality of the slides and the incompleteness of this
report, but I thought you might be more interested in a little
up-to-date picture than what we looked at before. Part of
the problem is the fact that there was a little misunder-
standing between Graham and myself as to what an opaque
projector consisted of, but I do appreciate the help of his
girls in getting my opaque slides reduced to a transparency
slide, but the quality isn't what I would like it to be.
Sorry about that, Graham.
Okay. I'm going to describe today
the experience we have had with two different automobiles,
plus some engine test results on the tests and dynamometer
that we have been running recently.
The first one is a conversion of a
'72 Volkswagen 412 sedan. This vehicle was selected because
it is a fuel-injected engine and the work that was done at
Stanford on one of the author's recommendation was that some-
body ought to look at a fuel-injected automobile. Well, this
may be the only one left if Bob Lindquist has gotten rid
of his Volvo.
Have you still got that, Bob, or
DR. LINDQUIST: No.
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MR. TILLMAN: We don't have the only
one left, but there aren't very many of these fuel-injected
methanol vehicles around.
This one is interesting from a
couple of standpoints. One, it's been in service on methanol
for over two years and we have had no fuel system component
deterioration, except for some elastomers. We have recently
noticed a slight drip at the bottom of the pan and traced
it to the elastomers that had gotten brittle on us and it
actually started cracking, but no corrosion of the fuel
pump or the fuel tank.
The other interesting thing about
this vehicle is that it is our dual-fuel automobile. The
conversion -- we inserted an extra set of fuel injectors
per cylinder so that we have two injectors per cylinder
which we can actuate either one or two sets. If we are
operating on gasoline, we inject the bottom set. When we
are working with methanol, we energize both sets. So this
vehicle, with no more than a flick of a switch, can operate
interchangeably between gasoline and methanol.
That's the good things about it.
Now, the bad thing to date has been
bur lack of ability to control the electronic ignition
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circuitry that this vehicle is blessed with, and I have a
little preliminary data. This was developed in conjunction
with the Bureau of Mines, Bartlettsville. They have been
kind enough to run our CBS test for us and if I could have
the first slide, please, this shows the vehicle is running
well, the vehicle, take my word for it, is running very rich,
as you can see from the CO and hydrocarbon with no catalyst.
It is very rich. It's particularly rich on the transients.
We did the best we could, trying to bypass this black box,
installed a. pair of PTH catalysts, took it back over to
Bartlettsville, and our steady-state operating conditions
at this time were pretty good, but we didn't have any way
of really examining speed transients. So we gave it back to
Bartlettsville and they obligingly ran it for us again and
again we were the speed transients have completely licked
us on this thing and it's a function of the accelerator
pump on this particular system. I think the interesting thing
from my standpoint is the very low NOx values that have
been achieved with this.
Well, let me have the next one
because it shows the steady-state conditions. These are
steady-state conditions that show that we do get excellent
control of CO and hydrocarbon with these catalysts on. These
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are approximate. We haven't reduced these to mass
emissions. This is just to give you a comparison of parts
per million concentrations. We get good control of these
emissions through a catalyst as long as we don't get these
spikes. Now, when we get a very rich spike, as we do on
transients, this stuff just scoots right on through the
catalyst without having a chance to get converted.
The next slide, then. We have
talked about some of the performance. This particular
vehicle performed very well on straight methanol. I think
you can see. The top table is the acceleration with gasoline
versus the acceleration with methanol and the various loads.
These are full throttle, not fart throttle, and constant
manifold, but the differences in acceleration are almost
negligible between methanol and gasoline in this vehicle.
We are operating reasonably lean overall, though. If you
will look at the economy down there, the bottom table,
looking at the economy and BTU's per mile, you will see
that we are showing a considerable improvement in economy
with methanol on this vehicle, even in this fairly rich
condition. We do have hopes for this vehicle the reason
I haven't gotten rid of it yet is, we have been working with
the Robert Bosh Corporation and they have very graciously
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converted our black box control circuit to a controllable
circuit and if it's in the mail now, I hope it will be in
(inaudible) City by the time I get back, and they have put
us in a number of variable potentiometers in this circuitry
so that we can vary air-fuel ratio and particularly we can
bypass this accelerator pump that is giving us the speed
transient problems. We hope, after our brief experience
with this, to put our catalyst back on, drive back over to
Bartlettsville and demonstrate that this vehicle will, indeed,
meet the original '75 specifications. That's the Clean Air
Act.
Okay, so much for the fuel injection
vehicle. This one, we think, has promise because certainly
we don't have the maldistribution problem that people
recognize as being existent with the carbureted automobile.
Since we didn't have a whole lot of
experience with the carbureted automobile> we decided we
would get our feet wet with a '74 Pinto. We chose the Pinto,
the 2.i liter engine, which, from one standpoint, was a
mistake. When you start redesigning the other systems for
the Pinto, you find that the distributor is not in the most
opportune place to get the pipes exactly where you would
like them to be, but we started out on this and the next
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slide will show the air-fuel distribution we got with the
stock carburetor, the stock in the system tnat after it
was adjusted simply to give us fairly lean methanol operation.
It's kind of hard to see. I apologize again. This is the
distribution between cylinders, cylinders 1, 2, 3 and 4, air-
fuel ratio along this axis.
At 30, we are running rich, but we
are running pretty uniform. At 40, we are getting up to
about where we would like to be and still getting uniform,
and then when we get into the high speed, 50 and 60 miles
per hour for operation, we get the characteristic mal-
distribution pattern.
Well, if you look at this particular
inlet system, you will see that the primary barrel is towards
the back and as long as you are operating below where the
secondary barrel kicks in, you are getting good distribution.
When the secondary barrel kicks in on the 50 and 60, it's
dumping right in the center of the 2 and 3 inlets and the
1 and 4's don't have a chance to pick this methanol up.
Consequently, we get this big variation in air-fuel ratio.
A big variation in air-fuel ratio
in methanol is considerably more serious problem when, one,
you are trying to make it operate as lean as practical, in
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order to minimize emissions and maximize economy and,
secondly, when you consider that the air-fuel equivalence
ratio with methanol is 6.45, as has been pointed out, verus
gasoline, about 15 to. 1, a change of 1 to 1 1/2 air-fuel
ratios makes a much different, a much bigger difference in
equivalence ratios with methanol than it does gasoline.
Simple arithmetic shows you that.
What happens in a practical sense,
then, on this particular automobile or on a V-8, it behaves
about the same way, that you will have some of the cylinders
running essentially at lean misfire limit when you lean this
out as far as you can take it, and these cylinders then
contribute just (inaudible) to the carbon monoxide and
hydrocarbon emissions.
On the other hand, you have a couple
of cylinders or more that are operating in the rich regime
which contribute disporoportionately to the NOx emissions.
If we could get the distribution,
pattern we would like, we think we could get both the
hydrocarbon-carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide emissions
down to the point that we would like them.
Okay. That we have looked at a
number of different inlet systems on this Pinto to try to
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optimize that and, unfortunately, with all the wiring and
the double carburetor systems and the two and four-barrel
and everything else you can think of, we haven't significantly
improved on the Ford design. My congratulations to Ford.
They did a much better job than I had at first anticipated.
I thought, hell, we could do better
than that. We haven't to date.
The one that we are using has some
promise and the one which we are checking out now is -- we
are putting a larger single-barrel on the back, burner there,
which will, we hope, give us a better distribution pattern.
Our objective on this car -- the reason we are striving to
lean it out is to, one, we want to demonstrate the emission
potential with this car with a lean thermal reactor
(inaudible) and also we want to do the same thing with a
catalytic converter.
Now, we think methanol has some
potential for maybe being controlled not with a catalytic
converter but with a lean reactor as well. So when we get
this leaned down to our satisfaction, we'll slap on a lean
thermal reactor, call it (inaudible) catalytic converter
and see what we can't do on emissions.
We have got about five more minutes.
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Now, I'll raise the spectre of some problems, some serious
problems that we have run into in the last month in our
engine tests. We wiped out four three engines in the
last five weeks on methanol, using straight methanol, and
it is a concern to me, and I think it should be a concern
to all of us, since we are involved in this work, and I
would like to raise the problem so that some other people
besides ourselves can be thinking on possible solutions to it
The first one I mentioned out at
the Denver meeting, for those of you who were there, we
decided, capriciously, I guess, to run a 5-C engine test.
Those of you who are in the oil business, this is a
know what I'm talking about; others may not. This is a
standard ASTM lubricating oil type test. It's r;un on
Ford 350 cubic inch V-8 engine and we have a lot of emissions
and performance data on this engine, so we decided to run a
standard 5-C test on it. The engine that we ran our
performance and emissions on has over 300 hours on methanol,
some of it under very hard service, at 70 mile per hour
equivalent, full throttle I mean maximum power, run it
just as nara as we could run it, and when we tore this
engine down we had no problems whatsoever.
Well, when we tried to run the first
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5-C sequence test, which I think a 5-C, it's either 168
or 172 hours, one or the other, and I have forgotten the
exact length of time,, it's you just simulate stop and go
driving. So it's not a real tough test from operation. It's
really kind of a sludge test for oils, sludge and lacquer
test.
Well, we ratioed this on the air-fuel
ratio, gasoline to methanol, and we got the engine running
pretty rich, richer than we would for minimum emissions.
Well, this test aborted well, it started to abort about
halfway through by oil consumption. We were outside the
limits on oil consumption. We decided to, as someone stated
this morning, through brute force and awkwardness, we were
going to force it through. Finally, we were up to about
a gallon of oil every 12 hours on this engine before we
could finish the test. We took the engine down; we had
excessive wear in the piston rings. We had just worn out
a set of piston rings in less than -- well, right at 172
hours. This particular test calls for a soft ring and we
thought, well,, maybe something is amiss here, so we ran the
second 5-C test, using the standard Ford rings, which are
somewhat, quite harder than the recommended rings for the
5-C test. This one same type of phenomena. Oil consumption
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went up very rapidly after about midway in the test. We did
get through. We were again using about a gallon per 12
hours. This time we, had dished out the top of the cylinder.
The rings themselves didn't show any wear, but we had a
nice little wear pattern at the top of the cylinder. It was
severe enough to allow excessive oil loss.
Well, as if this wasn11 bad enough,
just before I left, our little Pinto engine started getting
noisy on us, particularly on the No. 2 valve, and we were
pulling it down for another manifold change. So we decided
we would look at the head while we had it down and we had
cut out the exhaust valve guides on 2 and 3 to the point
that we couldn't even get an air gauge measurement on them.
3d we now replaced it with another gauge. I have a Piston
from the No. 3, incidentally. This shows the extensive
scoring in case a lot of pounding that I don't understand.
So those are the three engines we wiped out in the very
brief history. This Pinto engine had about 1500 miles on
methanol after first breaking it in with 2000 miles of
gasoline operation.
So that is a problem, fellows, and
we sure solicit any and everybody1s help on it.
Yes, sir?
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VOICE: This is a question that I was
going to raise as soon as you finished, and that is the
effect of the methanol on the lubricant, oil, the additive
packages, various additive packages that are used by
companies and as a base stock that is used.
MR. TILLMAN: Okay. Well, the oil --
this is one thing we haven't varied from. The oil we have
been using on this is a proprietary oil. It's our highest
quality of oil that we feel is equal to anything on the market
in terms of S.A.E. quality, which means nothing probably as
fer as methanol is concerned. It is a lubricity problem
and it is apparently associated with richness.
Do you remember, on the Pinto,, the
two cylinders that were rich were 2 and 3; those are the two
that cut out. I feel strongly that it's a lubricant problem
and I feel also strongly that is associated with rich
operation of methanol, but I don't propose a solution because
I don 11 know one.
VOICE: On the engine that you said
it had 300 hours of full throttle or full power use, was that
on your methanol or (inaudible)?
MR. TILLMAN: That's on pure methanol.
It was interchangeable. We ran base lines with gasoline and
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we ran with methanol so there was a lot of -- both types of
operation.
VOICE: Would you expect more blowby
to be occurring in the accelerating cycle than on just a
steady-speed cycle?
MR. TILLMAN: Yes.
VOICE: And so that type of testing
would probably accelerate the problem?
MR. TILLMAN: That's another point
that I didn't mention in the 5-C. Maybe you are familiar
with it. In the 5-C you do intentionally cut out the piston
rings a little bit to give you much more blowby than you
would on a stock' engine to accelerate the test, so these
5-C engines do have quite a bit of blowby on them by design..
The Pinto engine, I don't know.
Fred?
VOICE: You said you ran the Volks-
wagen for two years and the fuel system was clean after two
years? Do you know (inaudible) the turn plate, too?
MR. TILLMAN: I don't know. We got
a spare tank to put on this thing. We took it down and
looked at it and we couldn't detect any corrosion whatsoever.
Since we have to drop the engine to put this new tank on,
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we decided just to hold onto the tank until we got ready to
get rid of the automobile. Then we'll put it on.
VOICE: That could be an important
point, what people use for this ^soline (inaudible).
MR. TILLMAN: We are going to visit
Volkswagen later this month. I won't/ but Bob Jackson, I
believe you know, is going over there and this is one of
the questions we are going to pose to them: What have you
folks done on your tank that makes it work so well?
VOICE: Did you put any intake heat
in your Pinto manifold?
MR. TILLMAN: No. We are trying to
avoid we are trying to get mechanical rather than putting
the heat in. Yes, putting inlet heat would, of course, might
help, but we were trying to do this mechanically.
VOICE: Volkswagen, Graham, you said
(inaudible). I thought you said a thousand Fahrenheit, and
they said they had been doing a lot of work with all their
engines on methanol and but they definitely put in intake
heat, manifold heat. I think the factory says it's necessary,
so maybe it's necessary.
VOICE: It probably well, it may
be.
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VOICE: We were trying to avoid it.
MR. HAGEY Something we would like
to avoid, if we could.
Do we have any additional questions?'
If not, I would like to proceed to the workshop. Before we
go to that, does anybody have any requirements for typing
or anything that we can have our secretaries perform? If
not, I think we'll let the secretaries go. They have been
very patient and very helpful to us.
Ladies, I thank you very much, but
I think that should suffice.
If anybody has anything, now is your
last chance.
John? What we are going to do with
the workshops is try to run them in series so that John
is going to take the first crack at it and he and I will
split it up and try to be through by five o'clock.
For my workshop, I'm going to have
three panel members, Tom Reed, MIT; Dick Tillman who you
have just heard, and Joe Colucci in the front and, quite
frankly, we want your recommendations, opinions, bitches,
whatever, as to what not only in methanol, because we
have heard principally about methanol and methanol-gasoline
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blends today, but recommendations, suggestions, where should
the federal alternative fuels program be directed? I'll turn
it over to John and I think he has the same objectives in
terms of the Combustion Research Program.
DR. BELDING: Thank you, Graham.
Toru Iura and Bob Sawyer and Fred
Bracco are my three panelists and they are going to start off
the conversation, because what I'm going to do is suggest
my priorities and then they are going to probably chop me
apart and I hope that you will chime in then and have at it
with them.
So why don't you three grab a chair
up here in front so you can face the jury.
Well, by necessity, I think my
objectives have to be somewhat broad. I could give you
specifics on what I think needs to be done, but let me just
give you the top three items that I think ought to be done
and then I'11 back those up with some kind of service areas.
My feeling is that, regardless of
the type of fuel that we run, we need to understand combustion
generally. I think once we understand combustion generally,
we can then apply the type of fuel and I think the program
that I will outline here will allow us to do that.
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I think the No. 1 objective of the
combustion program is go to ultra lean combustion and, in
order to do that, I think that, first, we have to look at
the stratified charge, and by "stratified charge," I mean
all types, the Honda, the Texaco, et cetera.
The No. 2 area, then, would have to
be the diesel engine, and I think there are lots of areas
in diesel that can be looked at, open and closed chamber,
or open and dual chamber included, but you also have to look
at things like the odor, the noise, cold-start problems and
things like that.
So those two areas, then, stratified
charge and diesel, are really two different types of combus-
tion that I think we ought to attack and the ultimate, of
course, is lean combustion. So that's the third area.
Now, in order to support those
three areas, I think that we need some very serious work in
characterization of fuels. We have mentioned that earlier
today. What are we talking about with the methanol fuel
or other types? What are the law of limits and stuff like
that?
I think also, in order to understand
that, we need to look at droplet combustion, and we need to
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include in that mixtures, sprays, emulsions, et cetera,
and then we need to understand better the catalyst that
would aid us in combustion. I am thinking more in terms
of continuous combustion and the long-range goal, of course,
for the whole program is to be able to model these machines
on the computer so that we can cut out some of this testing.
Okay? Those are my objectives.
I hope the panel will disagree withme or agree with me or
whatever. So I open that up to the panel.
VOICE: Obviously, I tend to agree
for the need for the lean combustion work and the limitations
there. I think there is at least one very fundamental area
which really isn't a combustion problem in itself which has
been overlooked and needs a considerable amount of work, and
that's mixture preparation, just the general problem of
carburetion or fuel injection, and, with that, the mixture
distribution problem as well. I know that's one of the things
that's bothered us, the Academy study I have been involved
with. We haven't seen that much work going on anywhere,
really, in the field of mixture preparation. It seems
surprising because it comes up over and over again. The
maldistribution of the mixture ratio at the cylinders and
failure to vaporize well or to atomize well seems to affect
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the Performance both in terms of emissions and fuel economy,
and I simply put that at the top of my list. It's not even
a combustion problem, as such, but I think it's an extremely
important one. I'll just throw that one out and save some
other ones.
VOICE: Okay. Well, I think I want
to add another thing with regards to lean combustion and
whether you are talking ultra lean or stratified charge or
its variants and that is, I don't think it's been brought
up clear that there is a talking to a number of the
investigators, and I think the thing that seemed to come
out the most was the fact that there is a lack of under-
standing or a need for a greater understanding of hydro-
carbon control, how it's formed and what its fate is, what
happens in the cylinder walls., and I think this is an area
that, if you want to take advantage of lean production, work
can be done. I would certainly agree with you on that
mixture preparation.
Another thing, John mentioned about
diesel engines. It seems that if one is to consider diesel
engines for automotive use, essentially what I think we
are talking about free combustion chamber, free chamber
diesels rather than the open-chamber that might be used for
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heavy-duty applications, and perhaps the work might stand
orientation in that area insofar as understanding and
developing an understanding of the odor problem or the noise
problem, which really are the inhibiting factors, aside from
power and weight ratio.
VOICE: First of all, I agree
completely, really, with the list that John gave, in that
order, too. He started with the stratified charge engines
and went to diesel, lean combustion, characterization of
the fuels, droplet combustion and as the long-range goal,
he is hoping for some detailed models which could shorten
the development times of real engines. So I agree completely
with that list..
As far as the suggestion from Sawyer
that the fuel distribution, the nature of how uniform a
charge is for a carbureted engine is concerned, I think it's
a very valid point, but it depends on what the goals, the
final goals of the programs are. I think the future,
utilizing direct injection, whether it is intake manifold
or whether it is directly into the cylinder, in particular
stratified charge engines, I think they are going to be
directly injection, either intake manifold or in the cylinder,
the beginning of the compression stroke or at the top of the
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compression stroke. If for no other reason because that
eliminates pre-ignition and cuts down the knock if you
design it properly and, therefore, I think in long terms
well, perhaps (inaudible) carburetor is not of great interest
to me, If you are interested, or. the other hand, in the 5
percent, perhaps, improvement that you may get and in the
present cars from the present cars, then I think perhaps
one of the easiest place to look at is, indeed, the
carburetion and, indeed, the uniformity of the charge.
Now, another point which is dear to
me, as some of you know, is this business of the models. I
believe that well, first of all, we all know that Ford,
for example, has a 10 year old or IB or 20 year old program
to develop stratified charge engine. Texaco has a similar
program. Curtias-Wright has another program, and many other
corporations, too, that I am not even aware of. I think
models are available now that could shorten the development
times of these engines. I have a couple of years of
experience to back that statement up, and I think I would
recommend a joint effort of industry and university, perhaps
under the sponsorship of NSF or any other way.
One immediate result that I can see
from that is rapid evaluation of certain power plants? to
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debate, for example, is (inaudible) better than the Texaco
system or vice versa? It has been offered for how many
years? I think it would be offered that many more years,
unless some specific testing and understanding of thectetails
of the tvc combustion processes are undertaken, which would
reveal which one of the two is basically, has basically more
potential, but, as I started saying, I think I agree with
the list that John gave, in that order.
VOICE: Does anybody out there have
any differences? If you do, you can leave the room.
MR. ASHBY: I have a few comments
on scattered subjects. I'm Tony Ashby with the EPA.
The first that Professor Sawyer, the
point that he reminded me of in terms of fuel induction
systems and to be considered are the people who are going
to be doing the investigations. Have you considered
Sine-Venturi carburetor systems, such as Besser Industries
have developed, which they claim and have data to back it up
they operate at an overall ratio, air-fuel, of 18.5 to 1 over
a wide range of engine operating conditions and they are on
the right side of the NOx versus air-fuel ratio curve, and
so they have very low NOx and hydrocarbon and CO and fuel
economy.
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You might want to talk to those
people. In thinking about diesel, many of you may know
that the Emission Control Technology Division of EPA in
Ann Arbor have just recently finished a study done for them
by Riccardo on the diesel as a likely power plant, in which
a lot of the problems were identified and potential solutions.
Tom mentioned that he thought odor and noise and some other-
things might, be important. I my personal opnion is that
noise is relatively unimportant. You can build a car to
isolate the passenger compartment from the engine noise,
but odor define odor and measuring it objectively is a
big mystery right now and there should be a lot of attention
paid to those considerations.
Finally, Professor Bracco talking
about the years of development on the Ford and Texaco
stratified charge processes, can be compared with .what I
understand to be a relatively short development time in
the case of the Honda CVCC engine, and as far as an engine
sucn as the Proco coming to the marketplace or having a
viable place in the market, I think that and again this
is just my opinion that the manufacturing costs rather
than any basic understanding of the combustion will be the
determining factor. I think that probably the cost of
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high-pressure injection systems may mitigate against such
engines.
VOICE: Any response?
VOICE: I certainly agree with that
last point, that although I see the advantages that Fred is
pointing out on.going over to fuel injection systems, Prokc
type or even diesel, that it's going to take a long time,
if that's a desirable thing to do, to convert the carburetor
production capacity over to fuel injection production capacity,
and, in the meantime, we can certainly use some other solu-
tions .
I think in a diesel, the other area
which really needs to be pinned down at the particulate
characteristic,and I think that, in general, is a problem
of the fuel injection systems, whether it be stratified
charge or diesel. Everybody is talking about particle size
and particle composition, but I still don't see the good,
careful work being even, initiated to give a thorough
characterization of what the particles are that are produced
in these engines and what is causing them to be produced,
what the important parameters are. That, of course, is anothei
area which needs to be worked on.
2b a second-order requirement and as
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a researcher in the combustion field, I think the area of
diagnostic techniques needs a lot of work and I think the
people who do that work should not necessarily be the same
people who are trying to do the combustion research because
there isn't that much manpower in our program, for example,
to do it. Thereare two areas. The first is the laser
(inaudible) measurements of turbulence and volocities inside
the combustion chamber. These techniques are ready to be
applied, but I don't know of anybody who is doing it. It's
something that should be initiated and it should be initiated
rapidly, to find out what the flow field patterns are in the
engine while it's running and what the turbulence levels are
and whether the turbulence is dominated by the intake process
or whether it's stamped out by the motion of the piston,
for example. These questions are not understood, and I don't
think that the hot wire anemometery is quite strong enough
or flexible enough to give the answers to that.
The other area one keeps hearing
about is the time and space results spectroscopy which
the laser-Ramen techniques are supposed to provide some
real possibilities there. Again, these are huge, major
efforts to be undertaken with application not only to
automotive engine combustion, but many other fields and one
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should not underestimate the difficulty of proving out these
techniques. They are major programs, probably beyond the
scope of the National Science Foundation automotive engine
combustion field, but I think they are well worth resiving
and getting after.
VOICE: I would Hke to answer some
of the indirect questions and to add my support to what
Sawyer said.
First of all, the Honda, indeed,
has come to. a high degree of development in a short time
as far as we can tell, because I have never really seen a
complete set of data as far as that particular engine is
concerned. The main reason is that they are using the
divided chamber approach and, in essence, they are stratifying
the charge forcibly by having two chambers. The main problem
with the open chamber, which is the Texaco and the Proco
approach, is that you are trying to divide the rich and
the lean charge by some (inaudible) way and, of course, the
second approach is much more difficult than the first one,
even intuitively. However, the second one has a much lower
surface to volume ratio. So, if achieved, it will have a
better efficiency.
Okay. Now, as far as the high-pressure
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injection, that is something coming over from the diesel
combustion. What happens, when they start the development
of the stratified engine, they say, "How will you inject the
fuel?"
Well, lock at the diesel people and
they use the jet-type pump. Well, first of all, you can
obtain atomization with much lower delta P if, instead of
using the shower head injection you use a different injection
system like a vibrating (inaudible), for example, or
{inaudible} jets.
So the delta P is not now the order
of tens of thousands of psi, but of the order of hundreds
of psi. So you don't have to use a high-pressure injection
system to stratify a charge. In fact, you don't even have
to use it in a diesel engine.
There is the problem also of penetra-
tion (inaudible) which, again, will bring you back to the
model and let us leave that alone for the time being.
As far as the carburetion is concerned
I think that even makers have already realized that the
carburetion isn't exactly the best way you meter the fuels.
The Volkswagen, the Porsche, are already using intake
manifold injection. It's a low-pressure injection system
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electronically, and the feeding of the fuel is related to
the temperature and flow rate of air, so that you get the
precise metering of the fuel and they are already doing it.
So I think the days of the carburetor, to a large extent,
are over, no matter what.
VOICE: I don't think I agree with
that.
VOICE: But it is true that Porsche
and Volkswagen are already using it in their engines.
VOICE: Yes, but they are using it
because of the fuel distribution problem, not so much as a
fuel metering problem, and I think those are quite different
I also think that there are
opportunities in the Dresser-type and other types of
(inaudible) flow carburetors which have not been fully
explored and that, with a good carbureted system, you can
get excellent fuel-air control. It's just that the systems
we have now are really pretty crude and not flexible over
the entire operating range.
VOICE: There is a slight difference
here. I prefer the low-pressure injection system, but that'
okay. You mentioned something about cost associated with
the stratified charge system injection. It isny information
-------
directly with discussion with the auto makers that cost is
not a major element in their consideration. The (inaudible)
cost with the low-pressure injection system would be of the
order of perhaps hundreds of dollars, most, and you know
cars went up 50, 40 percent in price over the last two years.
A hundred dollars would not make much difference.
VOICE: Let's get another question
from the audience.
MR. LESS: My name is Sam Less from
Penn State. I certainly agree with you on lean combustion
which we have been working on for quite some time, but I
would like to make a few points here.
First of all, it depends on our
time scale whether we are looking at long-range or short-
range. I think the short range problems are very practical
in nature and there is lots of areas that have been neglected
and we should pay attention to them right now, from both an
emissions and an energy standpoint.
One that pops right into my mind is
the idea of warmup. That's been neglected and something
should be done about it right now, both from an energy and
an emissions standpoint. But if you are looking further
down the tube to what's ultimately going to happen, we are
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going to be burning fuels that can't be carbureted. I feel
that coining, or at least some fuels that can't be carbureted.
What do you do with these? You got to get them in somewhere
else, into the engine some other way, and for this reason
I think it's very important to get on the ball with the
injection research.
Also, as opposed to open and closed
chamber, all of us know the advantages and disadvantages of
both types of operation. I think the prime goal for our
research down the tube, the very first and prime goal should
be that we should come up with a device that is capable of
handling multi-fuels. It should have multi-fuel capability,
because we don't know what we are going to be burning 10
years from now or 15 years from now, and this should be the
No. 1 goal. Whatever we do, we don't know what the engine
is going to look like, but, by God, it better be able to
burn anything from olive oil to who knows what? And I
think this is what we should set for our long-range goal.
The immediate goals should be the
more practical types of things that we have heard mentioned
here by Professor Sawyer, the distribution certainly, if
we knew more about the distribution, we would be able to do
more with our lean combustion.
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The diesel problem, the particulate
matter, and the smoke are important problems with the diesel
engine; but we have got to keep our eye on the ball. Short-
range, very practical-type problems. Long-range, we better
be prepared for what's coming.
VOICE: I wish we would get a good
resolution of whether the multi-fuel capability is something
we want to go for or not. My impresion is that the premium
fuel will be reserved for the automobile and the power,
industries and others will have to get by with the lower
grade fuels. It sounds good to me, Sam, but I the people
that deal with fuel supplies don't seem to think that's
necessarily the case.
Let me throw out another long-range
item which looks very attractive, and that is the feedback
control systems for the combustion process. The work that's
been done on the three-way catalyst has shown that there is
some very interesting returns from this type of system.
There is not a good sensor for a lean combustion feedback
control system and this is the system which would control
such things as air to fuel ratio obviously, spark advance
and perhaps other parameters to either optimize fuel
economy or power or minimize emissions. This, again, is
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not really a combustion area but it's tied very closely to
combustion.
VOICE: I take it you are familiar
with the work that SchWitzer has been doing
VOICE: Right.
VOICE: -- and the one thing that
the one open question in that is really what do you use for
the feedback signal? For any optimizations system to work,
you need to have something that either goes through a
minimum or a maximum. Youcan't you can't feed back
you can't you need an error signal that can dither and
home in on either a minimum or a maximum and this is what
we are busily trying to find.
It seems to me that the people at
Sheffield over in England are using temperature feedback
and it's working real well. I think that's what they are
using, I'm pretty sure.
Graham Hagey wanted to say something.
Graham?
MR. HAGEY: Well, I just I had an
item on the side here with Fred Kant. I asked Fred to respond
to the multi-fuel question because he has done some work for
us in this regard and
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VOICE: Well, I would just make a
broad comment. I think people always wishfully think about
putting together a car that will burn things from soup to
nuts or olive oil to tar, but I,think, when you really get
down to it, it makes you can optimize a car for one fuel
but you will find that when you do that, how it performs on
Fuel B is going to suffer greatly and, furthermore, if you
superimposed on that, you have to have a variety of distribu-
tion networks for each fuel. You just can't possibly, in
my opinion anyway, conceive of a fellow driving on one tankful
of fuel A and pulling into a gas station, and, without doing
things, pulling out with fuel B and back to A and C.
We have, at best, the possibility
of perhaps two grades which we now haVe, or three for the
time being, but a two-grade system makes sense in the long
run, perhaps, but to have like the Texaco system which has
been promoted in the past on the basis that it is really a
wide-range fuel machine, I don't really think, when you
really get down to it, or, for that matter get there, would
really work out that way and I think we are putting our focus
on real
VOICE: Well, I have to agree because
the other area that I work in .is base load power stations
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and we are working on the same problem and it is a very long-
term kind of goal.
VOICE: John, too, when you talk about
heavy fuels, you are talking about dirty fuels and it takes
fairly sophisticated processing to clean them up and the
trend is to get cleaner and cleaner fuels and I don't think
that we are going to see devices on cars to clean up. I think
this can be done in central processing units where you can
specify the quality and something they can monitor.
VOICE: I have a couple of comments
that relate both, I think, to the multi-fuel question that
Sam brought up and another area that I would like to suggest.
My name is Clif (inaudible) from Southwest Research Insitute
and, in particular, I am with the Army Fuels and Lubricants
Research Laboratory which is located there.
I think, in the multi-fuel, question,
the Army probably is the only one that is really concerned
with it as being meaningful because they have a security
problem in that quite often they have to live off the land
and in a combat situation. Whether that occurs or not in
the future, that's a question, but still that is a problem
that they have to concern themselves with.
I think that an area, though that
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this brings in another area cf interest and that is the effect
of real fuels on heterogeneous combustion. We have seen a
lot of work done in the past, both the single drop and spray
combustion, using' pure hydrocarbons (inaudible) whatever,
because of simplicity and understanding the vaporization of
the droplet, but when you get into a real fuel with a broad-
bottom boiling range or a narrow-cut boiling range or some-
thing like with the methanol added to it where it really
bastardizes the normal, smooth (inaudible) curve (inaudible).
These can affect the modeling
concepts for ignition and ignition delay periods that are
needed for the diesel combustion. All of course, the
fuel components affect (inaudible) production, the stable
aromatics, the pyrolysis of ambients; that's pretty well
accepted, but there may be some work along those lines that
can help. I forgot the other point that I was going to say.
Well, anyway, I think that's another
area that's worthwhile.
Oh, for instance, we are not really
even sure how a droplet vaporizes. If does a droplet
distill or are mechanisms involved in the diffusion of
once you equate the outer surface of the light ends, is there
a diffusion mechanism from the interior of the droplet to the
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surface so that you deplete all of this light ends and then
go through to the heavier ends, or do you strip off the
entire boiling range from the outer surface and just go
(inaudible) the droplet? This all affects what's going to
be in the vapor phase.
VOICE: I think Fred (inaudible)
has a comment that he can make on that.
VOICE: (inaudible), Princeton
University. I would like to add a couple of comments, one
first in the diagnostics area to which Dr. Sawyer referred.
There is one other diagnostic tool
that really has come to quite advancement in recent years
and could be of great aid in much of the heterogeneous
sort of combustion processes that we are investigating and
that's holography. There is an area in terms of spray
distribution [inaudible) that we really don't understand in
ternis of droplet distribution, and distribution arid even
the spray (inaudible) distribution in the chamber that can
successfully, hopefully, investigated through the use of
holography. This is an area that really, as well, needs
to be advanced.
There is another area that was
identified in addition to both the laser- Raman approach and
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the (inaudible) approach, and this APS summer study to which
I referred earlier.
I would also like to add some, what
I think will consider very fundamental combustion research
aspects that I think lead into the support sort of areas
that John mentioned earlier. The area of characterization
of fuels. We have gone to great extents (inaudible) octane
number and cetane number and, to some extent, even the
ignition delay sort of characteristics of fuels, but we have
not, as the fellow from Southwest Research Institute pointed
out, considered very often the multi-component character of
most of the practical types of fuels we use. Indeed, I
think it might be this multi-component character that adds
to the smoke formation problem in many of these systems.
There is one early work on the
burning of multi-component droplets. It was done by
Lysatole in about 1951 and it's in the NASA data value,
and you will find there that they do observe what is called
fractional distillation pattern for the droplet itself in
its combustion and, therefore, what you end up with is
the heavy end product in the final droplet that's being
combusted. These are very conducive to soot formation for
these heavy end products.
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It may well be that adding materials
that don't come out as a fractional distillation pattern
could be very important to this smoke formation, particularly
in diesels and this is why we think the use of water-fuel
emulsions in such heavy fuels may wel'l be of importance in
terms of breaking up these final droplets that are left of
heavy distillates.
There are a couple of other areas in
terms of modeling which I might mention which, again, are
very fundamental things that are needed in progressing further
in the model area. We really don't understand the droplet
formation problem in terms of sprays. Now, we really don't
understand at this point, even in simple terms of trying to
specify global mechanism, the chemistry and energy release
that must go in as terms and expressions in even the simplest
of models, where we are trying to replace this idea of using
flame velocities as a (inaudible). These are measurements
that really have to come, I think, in the long range before
we can push these models to the pciit of having some sort of
real confidence in our (inaudible).
I would add one other area that I
think has come up .more than once in this problem of using
methanol-gasoline blends and that's the area of even evaluating
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what the hydrocarbon emissions are from these blends. We
have talked about developing a specific engine for a specific
fuel and what we found we are doing, we are also developing
specific emission characteristic tests for specific fuels,
if you will. We haven!t really considered the chance of
having a major something, such as an alcohol in emissions,
and, as I have reiterated earlier, there are techniques,
I think, that are presently available that we can put to use.
VOICE: I think Dr. Neke can address
that specific problem with emissions because he is doing that
on his contract.
VOICE: This methanol-gasoline blends,
we are studying both the (inaudible). I can't say (inaudible)
because I don't think many people understand what's going on
(inaudible) and, by the way, this is a very important thing
that needs to be studied, ultra (inaudible) combustion of
heavy molecules.
I feel that before we go to blends
and mixtures of fuels, we need to understand at least the
combustion of the heavy molecule like octane. I haven't seen
in the literature any published data that show a growing
mechanism for the combustion of a heavy molecule because
here you are talking about processes of decomposition,
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partial distillation (inaudible) .
I think we need a good model for
combustion of these heavy molecules and then we can proceed
to combustion of mixtures of heavy molecules and light
molecules. This is an area which I propose some of the
combustion specialists to work on. This is not my area.
The area which we are talking about,
our work, is the flame propagation inside of engines
(inaudible).
Meanwhile, we are studying the
emission characteristics of these mixtures in the single-
cylinder engine. We have the whole emissions (inaudible).
We will be able to measure the CO,
hydrocarbons, NOx (inaudible) with different mixtures of
methanol and gasoline in single-cylinder under different
conditions (inaudible)and so on, and we hope to extend this
to the auto emission of these mixtures. For example, the
behavior of these mixtures in diesel engines, for example
(inaudible) and we hope to come up with something in the
future about this and we will be very careful in watching
this (inaudible), the methanol and gasoline under pressure.
VOICE: The thing that I was really
addressing was the fact that you have a testing device from
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an unnamed company at this point and it essentially wipes
out all the heavy hydrocarbons (inaudible), so what he has
done is, he set up a special measuring device because he
realized that prior to the test, and that measuring device
will, in fact, pick up those heavy hydrocarbons.
VOICE: (inaudible).
VOICE: The EPA standards make you
go through an ice bath first that washes out all the heavy
hydrocarbons and so we bypass that particular aspect of it.
VOICE: We are measuring by using
(inaudible).
DR. BELDING: Right. Why don't we
get some comments from the panel here and then we'll go back
to the audience again and then I have got to turn it over
to Graham.
VOICE: Well, going to an area which
came up earlier today but hasn't been mentioned now and that's
the whole subject, once again, all over, of knock, octane
number and fuel additives. Is that worth trying to under-
stand and push the octane rating up, or do you push the
octane requirement of engines down? It seems to me that we
have got to go back and work on that one again, unfortunately,
and I think also related to that is probably work in combu stion
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chamber heat transfer because there should be fuel economy
savings where you reduce heat transfer loss in the chamber
which you are going to run into octane knock problems.
There are certainly emission advantages to keeping the
exhaust temperature up and one way to do it is to cut down
on the heat transfer of the wall.
VOICE: I was just going to add
another thing, was this octane rating increase that you
experience is another thing that probably is worth looking
at, and Sam mentioned earlier about this warmup problem.
I think this whole area of we are at a loss, since so
much cf our driving occurs in the city and are of very short
duration, there is no question about where the losses occur.
It's not clear that it's all in the engine or much of it is
the engine alone, especially if we have emission control
systems and faster chokes, that how much cf the loss is
going into the drive line and how much might be going to
the tire and perhaps can't do anything about. I think
there's an area here that perhaps information is available.
If it is, I would sure like to hear about it, but it's
a very fruitful area.
VOICE: I would like to comment
farther on these suggestions that multi-fuel capability of
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engines are important. I don't think that anybody is
advocating or predicting that 10 or 15 years from now there
will be various kinds of fuels that one can choose from.
I think what we are saying is that, in particular, the
National Science Foundation should, at this point, see to
it that knowledge is accumulated about any possible fuel
which may be found available or to which society may switch
in 10 or 15 years, and that could be lower octane, just as
simple as that; just lower octane. Fuel it could be
methanol, it could be hydrogen you name it.
The fact is that one thing we want
to make sure is that 10 years from now, okay, we are not
going to be faced with the problem of what to do with the
new fuels which are available then, and we now spend time
on the carburetor. The National Science Foundation should
look ahead and look at the multi-fuel capability of an engine,
not because an engine will burn ten different fuels, but
because we may be called to operate on any number of fuels.
VOICE: Well, we are, in fact, trying
to get fuels from the Navy. They are probably the front
runners as far as making up new fuels, and we are trying to
get fuels from them and we will pass those out to the various
people and see if we can (inaudible).
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There was a question over there in the.
back.
VOICE: Yes, I have a comment. I
think that one of the basic areas of research that I haven't
heard mentioned here (inaudible) was that someone has to
first understand gas phase reactions. I think that even
these stratified charge engine experiments should be done
with the gaseous fsuel first, because what we found in our
turbine work is that there are important parameters like
heat transfer and also the presence of free radicals that
determine, you know, how long is it going to take for
combustion to occur, how lean you can run, things like that,
and you also, in the area of pollutant formation, you have
got to be able to separate the effects of gas phase reactions
from those of droplet burn.
You might take methanol for example,
has been cited as producing a lot of formaldehyde and right
now I don't think anyone can say, well, that's a gas phase
reaction problem unique to methanol or it's a droplet burning
problem, and I think until we have models and experiments
that correlate these models with gaseous fuels, gas phase
reactions, a lot of this is just a shot in the dark.
VOICE: One question right here.
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VOICE: It wasn't a question. I
would just like to reinforce Dr. Sawyer's goal or whatever
that we look at the induction or the mixture thing. I think
we need both a near-term look at this and a long-term.
VOICEf Just talking about knock
for a second, we some time ago came up with a method where we
documented emissions in a single-cylinder study versus knock
intensity and this appears in the S.A.E. literature, but
the important thing is to come up with a method. If you
really want to make comparisons, you got to come up with a
method that permits you to do this, and what we did was, we
used something called knock intensity, which was based on
the rate of pressure change, which is more sensitive to
knock, by the way, than just the pressure itself, and we
were able to get a good correlation
VOICE: also work on gasoline
and distillate fuels from coal and shale and hydrogen.
I would like to have any general
comments that you might have in this regard as to where we
conduct our research and our studies.
Yes?
MR. BURNHART: Phil Burnhart, EPA
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(inaudible).
I think in the previous session, in
I don't think enough emphasis was placed on emissions
and I'm not speaking of conventional CO and hydrocarbons and
NOx emissions, but (inaudible) new species from either an
alternative fuel or, say, substitutes for tetraethyllead
which we are involved with now or, say, the catalyst with a side
effect of the sulfate emissions. If you only can measure
CO, hydrocarbon and NOx, then you are not going to pick up
these things. So I think we need to identify early in the
game with an eye towards environmental and health concerns
the new species that would be identified.
For instance, the City of Seattle
considering the use of methanol, and we can't even measure
some of the species that are in the emissions. So I think
we have to identify them more closely.
VOICE: I thank you very much for
the comment because I think it's a very appropriate comment.
I don't think we want to get into another situation such as
EPA has recently gotten themselves into with the sulfate
problem. I think that's an unfortunate situation, and I
would hope that as we investigate these alternative other
fuels, that we would very carefully investigate the products
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of combustion so that we don't get into a similar kind of
a situation in the future.
Yes?
MR. CAMPBELL: I'm Fred Campbell,
also with the Toxicology Lab (inaudible) EPA. I would like
to carry what (inaudible) said a little bit further. I
apologize for being an outsider here. I'm probably the only
toxicologist in the group, so I'm a wee, small voice, but
I would like to acknowledge that I think what I've heard
today by virtue of roundabout invitation, I appreciate very
much all this technological language. It's gone somewhat
over my head today, but I would like to acknowledge it for
what it is and for why it is and say that, to the toxicologist
who is ultimately going to have to evaluate these alternatives
in terms of public health hazard, perhaps, that we need all
of this information that we can before we launch into our
section of the program. Not only from the standpoint of
developing engine or model atmospheric generator systems
for testing (inaudible), but also the chemistry involved in
defining these atmospheres so that we can at least get some
leads of what it is that would be out in the environment
as a result of using some of these alternative systems.
We can't possibly test for example,
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someone earlier mentioned today that if you take methanol,
there are probably over a hundred possible chemical reaction
times and possible species that might result from the combus-
tion of this under various conditions. Well, we can't
possibly start out testing all hundreds of those and to the
extent that we don't have to do that, obviously, the better
off we are in evaluating the health impact aspects of these
things (inaudible).
VOICE: Joe, any comment on that?
I tend to support that.
VOICE: One of the things I was going
to point out I think we need a little bit more work on with
respect to methanol is with respect to the effect of methanol
emissions on the atmosphere. If there is appreciable
unburned methanol that gets into the atmosphere, we should
know what the effect will be. I mentioned in my talk that
information at hand indicates that methanol is not very
reactive, but I'm still not certain that when it gets there
with the rest of the (inaudible) that there are in the
atmosphere that there might not be a (inaudible).
I don't think it is going to occur,
but I think we ought to check into this and find out. We
need some good smog chamber studies with methanol, both from
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the pure state and exhaust from methanol-fueled vehicles.
VOICE: I was going to say the same
thing, but one thing a little less sophisticated. Supposing
you have a car with this fuel mix stuck in a cold garage
space for a week or two? How much EPPN do you build up in
this material? What is the long-term effect of having some-
body breathe this? And these are things that we really can
start now. I mean, we know pretty well what the alternative
fuels are going to be in the next 10 or 15 years methanol,
coal, shale-derived material. You won't go far wrong if you
bet on those, so I think there is certain work that can be
done in this field while we do more of this combustion work
or field testing and so on, because I know that kind of work
is very time-consuming and it would be unfortunate to then
have to wait for the important things to be done after all
the other information is gathered. So I think we can
save a little time by (inaudible).
VOICE: Good, Fred.
I had a comment excuse me. I'll
get to your turn.
VOICE: I would like to comment in
terms of the toxicity problems with methanol and even its
grouping problems. As far as emissions from methanol, neat
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methanol combustion, the one that is probably of the most
importance as far as photochemical smog reactions are con-
cerned, is formaldehyde, and the reason is because formaldehyde
can be photochemically decomposed by wave lengths very close
to those of typical sunlight.
As far as products other than that
that are dangerous in terms of emissions, I doubt that there
are any that are really as serious as those we are already
facing with gasoline, and the reason is the following: we
have done some pyrolysis tests on methanol, on methanol itself,
at temperatures around a thousand Kelvin (inaudible).
It turns out formaldehyde is the only
product that we see that's not a. paraffinol but an etheline, an
if you see products that are of higher hydrocarbon content
than, let's say, C2, it's probably occurring from droplet
combustion in your cylinders and it's very possible you may
have droplet combustion within your cylinders because of
the high heat of vaporization mechanism and the fact that
it is not able to vaporize anywheres near as well as gasoline
(inaudible).
VOICE: I wonder if Mr. Campbell
could describe, does EPA have a program on these possible
toxicological things?
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VOICE: Well, I think it might be
appropriate. The question was: What was the EPA program
on toxicology with these fu els?
VOICE: Rather large. We have a
program that's coordinated out of Washington and involves
a great deal of effort in (inaudible), but also (inaudible)
from research efforts at both RTP and Cincinnati, and
I think that probably the notable name in coordinating within
EPA research in this area is John Moran at RTP as a program
element manager, as we call him, but these things are pro-
grammed into EPA research and I would just like to try and
promote that some of the health aspects of this kind of
research, have the knowledge or the crystal ball feature
that you people are able to come up with in time for us to be
at least not very far behind, at least in testing some of
the more critical aspects of the possible emissions impact
from a new material, but there is a program in EPA. I'm sure
that the new ERTA is going to have an interest in finding out
what these health aspects things are and it's going to have
to be some inter-agency coordination here. This, I guess,
will have to be developed yet, but I'm sure it's possible
and I trust and hope that it will work, but it will take a
lot of mutual cooperation by us, government and so on.
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VOICE: Thank you.
VOICE: I would like to follow that
with a comment. As Joe Colucci pointed out, there is a need
for smog chamber work to determine the reactivities of the
species, engines running on methanol.
At Livermoore, we do have a group
which does atmospheric modeling and over the course of the
next year they will be applying that model, Livermoore
Regional Air Quality Model, try.to do these tabulations,
make some intelligent guesses, where guesses are .needed,
where the data is not available, in which perhaps some of
these (inaudible) will be. treated as parameters and (inaudible)
VOICE: I would like to perhaps
steer the conversation just a little bit.
Does anybody hare any comments on our
hydrogen program? It's a very small program and it's pri-
marily concerned with the onboard vehicle storage of hydrogen.
Does anybody have any feelings about I know one gentleman
does with respect to other aspects of hydrogen work?
Combustion, perhaps.
VOICE: Well, it is a little concern,
a problem that I have. Let me tell you what I'm driving to.
I'm driving to that a little bit of money should be put in
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the utilization of hydrogen in engines.
Now, you are putting whatever money
you have in the storage problem. Suppose that you solve
this storage problem and now that you look at utilization
of hydrogen in engines and you find out that you have problems
utilizing in engines, that you get a lot of nitric oxide when
you use it (inaudible). Then what is all this, having solved
the problem 1 good for?
On the other hand, if you could
(inaudible) utilize hydrogen in engines and you convince
yourself that it can be utilized, that the nitric oxide
emissions are that low, but you cannot carry the ball, then
what good is that information?
It seems to me that the problems
cannot really be uncoupled, that if there is to be any
effort at all in the hydrogen area I'm not saying there
should be any but if there is going to be any, okay,
it looks to me like the two problems cannot be uncoupled.
Then, of course, I can say frankly that although work has
been done at (inaudible) in the internal combustion engine,
all that work doesn't amount to much in the way of quality
and conclusiveness.,
VOICE: I think that's right.
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Yes, John?
VOICE: (inaudible) two points.
One, I think we have all ignored one little problem I think
needs to be clarified (inaudible) methanol and it comes back
to the lubricant. What is the -- how does this get out?
I want you to tell me that. In some of the diesel work,
there is some instance maybe this can be a problem and if
you put water in fuel such as hydrogen, I'm sure this is
going to be a major problem.
The other one is the analytical
training, as I mentioned many times. They will be normally
available in your chemistry department, engineering department.
VOICE: (inaudible), Cornell
University. I would like to stress a problem that was
brought up before but hasn't been discussed in much detail
and that's the (inaudible) when you run on pure methanol.
There are interesting numbers that one can cite about that.
It's already been cited that you need about twice the amount
of heat to heat the mixture because of the high rate of
vaporization and also because you have relatively less air
present in this stoichiometric mixture. Now, if you don't
have that heat, the temperature drops 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
That compares to 40 degrees Fahrenheit when you have a
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gasoline-air mixture stoichiometric. The temperature drop
would be less when you have a leaner mixture, but even then
it is quite considerable. If you have a mixture at 55 degrees,
then the vapor pressure is just barely enough to get a chemical
mixture. So if you start at 55 degrees, you are way off.
You have to start higher than that, and apparently 70 or 80
degrees you have easy starting, but below that already there
are. difficulties.
So it seems to me, from a practical
point of view, that problem really needs to be stressed.
There are a number of possible solutions. One is to add
acetone or ether as a starting fluid. That's not very
pleasant and not an easy thing to do.
Another possibility would be to add
heat while you are starting, but you have to add a lot of
heat and it isn't as long as you don't have the exhaust
available (inaudible) , and the third possibility which we
are preparing to study under contract with the Department
of Transportation is direct fuel injection into the cylinder.
Now, hopefully at least you get
the fluid in the cylinder, but one of the difficulties, of
course, is when it vaporizes you cannot transport the fuel.
If you direct the injection to the cylinder, at least it's
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there. If you do it early enough during the stroke, hopefully
you can and certainly at the end of the compression stroke
the temperatures are high enough. That's not a problem any
more. There comes the problem of how rapidly can you
evaporate the mixture. It seems a possible way for starting
even at very low temperatures and we are all set up. We
are working in hydrogen and that's a second comment I would
like to make, if I may.
At the moment we have received
(inaudible) direct fuel injection so certainly we can
convert that to the methanol. In working with hydrogen,
I would like to emphasize what you said. There are many
points that need to be studied and the more the deeper
you get into it, the more points you see that need to be
studied before you because it becomes clear that hydrogen
engines are not very well documented in the literature and
there are a number of points that remain to be resolved.
One of them we are studying right
now is possibility of using compression ignition with
hydrogen. Jet propulsion laboratory is very interested in
that. They are considering using their hydrogen to run their
diesel engines to become energy self-sufficient, but there
is no documosntation ir. the literature at the moment that you
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can run hydrogen on compression ignition. At least no
technical documentation. There are somewhat nontechnical
references.
So there are many other points like
that for hydrogen, so I would like the point made that
hydrogen engine research is very much needed also.
VOICE: Have you any comments to
make on the question, the subject you know, what I'm
really searching and I'm not getting it from the audience
and maybe I have a preconceived notion of what I'm hunting
for, but the comments really on the program that we presented
you see deficiencies. Emphasis you know, should we
be spending five times as much effort in this area as we
are spending in I'm looking for fundamental, not so
much whether we solve a cold-start problem with methanol,
although I'm not knocking that comment, but you see what I'm
trying to strive for here, Andy?
VOICE: Well, I see what you are,
trying to strive for, but I'm not going to answer your
question.
It is fundamental, what I will like
to bring up. As a reader, I find it very confusing, trying
to compare results fromresearch and industry communities
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which are reported on supposedly the same types of information.
It would seem like the fundamental issue, some accepted test
standardization procedure, or format or something should be
developed so that everybody is doing their reporting on the
same basis.
VOICE: That's a toughy because you
know how long it took to get just a federal test procedure
for gasoline. You know,, the emission test procedure for
gasoline.
VOICE: But you always listen to --
VOICE: I agree with you.
VOICE: You read papers and you hear
reports. As a nonresearcher, it's very difficult when you
are reading something that is unrelatable to another issue.
VOICE: I agree. It's something
a great deal of work could be done on this area, but I think
it's going to be a long time coming. I don't think it's
going to be overnight.
Dick?
VOICE: Yes. I would like to raise
a little different issue. I certainly appreciate the work
that needs to be done, the basic type of work that D&SF is
approacning, but I guess because I'm kind of a brute force
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type anyway, the work that we are dping, it's going to come
to an end very soon, but I think practical vehicle experience
with these alternate fuels and particularly as far as I'm
concerned with methanol is an area that is kind of getting
overlooked and guess this is where you are going to find that
you have a number of problems that you don't even recognize
yet.
Now, I certainly would like to see
you pick up more EPA work in this area for, as I recall
hearing the Bureau of Mines gentleman saying today, their
vehicle testing program didn't include straight methanol.
It was only in blends.
VOICE: I'm sorry. Say that again?
VOICE: The Bureau of Mines program
in Bartlettsville does not include vehicle testing on straight
methanol. It only includes vehicle tests, fleet "tests on
alcohol blends. That's what I wrote down. Is that correct,
Jack?
VOICE: That's what he said.
VOICE: Jerry?
VOICE: Sorry you got that impression.
The vehicles will only be run on the blends. Along with that,
we have a stationary engine, Chevrolet, that will
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VOICE: That doesn't answer the
question of fuel tank compatibility, elastic compatibility,
a lot of these oth ec problems that I (inaudible). That's
where I think you are weak.
VOICE: I think you are probably right.
Well, maybe it's an appropriate time to just make the comment
and I think everybody is aware that, and we have had some
discussion on it today, that there is a new energy research
and development administration and our activity is beinq
transferred out of EPA and into ERDA and we expect that the
alternative fuels program, as well as the alternative engine
power plant programs are going to move into ERl)A. So the
details of the program, our current program and our future
program, are somewhat up in the air and will depend on what
monies are made available within ERDA an<^ what the program
priorities are and so I can't really respond to your
question or your comment but to accept it and hope that,
with an expanded program and a n erf agency, that we will have
a great deal more flexibility in this regard.
VOICE: There is one other area that
hasn't been addressed that I would like to see somebody cover
and I hate to suggest replowing this ground again, but if we
are considering methanol as a viable alternate fuel, I think
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catalyst life studies and catd.yst-type studies might be
re-examined because, from what data we have, it would
appear that methanol is much less tough on catalyst life
and, indeed, some of the non precious metal catalysts might
be substituted if you are going to go to methanol operation
which would (inaudible).
The other thing is catalyst life on
the prescious metals, I think from what we have seen you
can get a lot longer catalyst life (inaudible).
VOICE: You just triggered a process
in my thinking, that I wanted to state, and I should have
stated earlier, in all of this research that we are sponsoring,
we are not promoting any of the fuels. Our real our
objective here is to document, characterize the fuels in
engines and in vehicles. We are not promoting hydrogen or
methanol or any other fuel, but it is to put the data, the
information in the public domain, and Allen, I guess you
have your hand up back there.
VOICE: I would like to try to respond
to the question of (inaudible) by saying that whatever
research is published, quoted, I would hope that it is
sufficient (inaudible), starting from the resource, winding
up with the vehicle on the road.
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you to provide practical information from which a decision
can be made, but one information is the fleet approach.
The other information is a fundamental approach, and that's
why the two agencies should cooperate. Otherwise, it can
come up with a very disleading picture.
VOICE: Yes, I think that's a good
comment. Thank you.
Andy?
VOICE: I tend to support what the last
two gentlemen said, and I wonder if Joe Collicci would mind
commenting on the same issue relative to the advantages and
disadvantages of (inaudible).
VOICE: I tried to imply that by saying
that you have to phase it into a given system, but the new
vehicles that are produced can be designed for the new fuels
that will be available and they will be designed based on
a lot of information that will be generated from all of these
four basic, four fundamental studies, not from vehicle
studies with existing vehicles, we are intending to do more
of these studies ourselves.
There are two ways to look at it:
the existing vehicles and those that are yet to be produced,
and the ones that are yet to be produced can build on the
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information that we are going.to generate. The ones out
there have a hard time building on that information.
VOICE: Does a lot of (inaudible)
with the ones out there just tend to end up being confusing,
giving results that are almost impossible to understand?
VOICE: No, I don't think so. I
think if you are doing tests now with the vehicles, '75
model vehicles, the biggest change that has occurred in the
automobile industry in many years, going to catalytic
converters, and the catalytic converter itself is going to
be around for quite a few years yet. So testing with those
vehicles is going to represent, is going to count with
respect to vehicles that will not be produced for at least
the next five years, maybe even much longer than that.
Testing a lot of testing with the '68, '69, "70, those
vehicles, is not going to help much.
MR. TEAGUE: Max Teague of Chrysler.
Talking about things from a rather more immediate and
practical standpoint, if we, indeed, expect to meet the
standards which have been proposed for 1978, which are
extremely difficult on all three components, we have a real
problem. Not only do we have anticipated difficulty meeting
the hydrocarbon and CO standards without a dual bed system,
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I don't think it is adequate to look
at either end of the fuel-to-road spectrum. Bob Lindquist
reported some figures comparing the thermal efficiency for
very cold methanol with very cold (inaudible].
Maybe (inaudible) from that point
of view would have an advantage. I would be a little bit
surprised if it's as big an advantage as he claimed, but
granted there may be an advantage in the fuel production
end.
Then the question comes up: Well,
which is really a better fuel in the car? You get better
efficiency in the car "with methanol than you do with whatever
gasoline (inaudible). When you look at the overall system,
which is giving you the greatest passenger miles (inaudible)
or whatever other, and certainly if you make, your contracts
with SRI
VOICE: Yes, it is addressing.
VOICE: Ml these factors : (inaudible)
just mentioned that question of catalyst life, environmental
impact. All those factors do have to be evaluated in order
to make a rational decision. Given the resource# what is the
best, route to go?
VOICE: Yes. Of course, there are
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