Abstract
Due to its properties, especially in blends with gasoline, the ethanol represents a viable alternative to fossil fuels. Using the gasoline-ethanol blends reduces the consumption of the petroleum products and offers significant opportunities in order to decrease the main emissions level. The paper presents some results of experimental investigations of on spark ignition engine fuelled with ethanol-gasoline mixtures at different operation regimes. To evaluate the influence of the ethanol on the combustion the engine was operated on the base gasoline calibration. The experimental researches were carried on at the optimal spark ignition timing for each engine operating regimen. The ethanol properties allowed engine operation at leaner dosages than in the case of engine working with gasoline. This fact assured an increase of the engine efficiency. Moreover, using ethanol-gasoline mixtures an increase of the engine power is obtained at the same energetic consumption of the gasoline engine. The results have shown that an improved engine performance and lower emissions level can be obtained with higher ethanol percentage in the blend by proper optimization of engine operating parameters without doing any major modification of the engine.
Keywords: SI Engine, Bioethanol, Gasoline, Emissions, Performance