Evaluation of automotive fuel flowmeters

Abstract

Fuel economy measurement procedures being developed by tbe Transportation Systems Center of the Department of Transportation require flowmeters to measure the gasoline consumed by the engine of an automobile either on the road or on a dynamometer. The contribution of the National Bureau of Standards to this work was to ascertain the environment in which the flowmeters will probably be used, to develop procedures for measuring their performance in a laboratory simulation of that environment, and to carry out illustrative measurements on a number of flowmeters. This report discusses:(1) the environment of the flowmeter in an automobile, i.e., flowmeter temperature; fuel temperature, pressure, density, viscosity, color, opacity, flow pulsations, back flow, and swirl due to elbows; line voltage fluctuations; electromagnetic radiation from ignition; vehicle attitude with respect to the vertical; and vibration, (2) the test set-up and procedure used for eavluating and calibrating these meters in the laboratory under conditions simulating the automotive environment, (3) a discussion of possible sources and magnitudes of errors in the calibration, and (4) results of illustrative tests on seven flowmeters.

Mixing of Biodiesels Produced From Different Sources to Jet Fuels and Comparison of Specifications of Fuel Blends

“…If this problem is not resolved, it will shorten the working life of the injection nozzles, resulting in higher maintenance costs and re-ignition the engine in the event of a malfunction during flight. It also affects the pressure drop in high viscosity fuel lines [25]. As a consequence, the fuel pump must work harder to guarantee a constant flow rate so that the turbines can continue working as required [26,27].…”