Abstract
Stricter laws and regulations with regard to C02 reduction and improved fuel economy have been announced and are on the way for the most important economies worldwide. For example the C02 fleet emissions for cars will be limited for the member states of the European Union from 2012 on and exceeding these limits will result in penalty payments by the manufactures. In the US the EPA has announced drastically improved fuel economy values and for the first time, regulations regarding Green House Gases including also light and heavy duty vehicles. In order to reach the C02 targets, the overall fuel consumption of vehicles has to be reduced seeing still a big potential on the combustion engine itself. Optimizing the engine combustion. like the improvement of thermodynamics, reduction of mechanical friction or engine calibration, offer the possibility of fuel consumption reduction in a two-digit range. Hybridization of the power train and the use of alternative fuels like CNG/LPG or bio fuels provide further options to reduce C02 emissions. The fuel consumption reduction increases the pressure to develop engines even faster, with strongly increasing measuring efforts at the same time. It is obvious that this also results in new demands and requirements for the fuel consumption measurement systems: • Complying with new injection systems regarding fuel pressure and temperature • Measurement of very small flow rates with short measurement times • High repeatability of the measurement results • Continuous and transient fuel consumption measurement • Compatible for measurement of alternative fuels The purpose of the paper is to describe the existing and upcoming measurement requirements and applications and to outline solutions allowing both the reduction of engine development time and at the same time increasing the test bed efficiency. Appropriate Fuel Consumption Measurement Systems will be introduced and the capabilities of reducing the overall testing time will be shown along with measurement results. KEYWORDS –
Fuel Consumption Measurement, CO2 Reduction, Fuel Economy, Bio Fuels, High Measurement Accuracy, Fuel Temperature Stability, Transient Fuel Consumption Measurement