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Gasket materials are utilized for various different types of high temperature testing to prevent leaking at bolted joints. In particular, the automotive test services field uses flanged-gasket bolted exhaust joints to provide a convenient method for installation & removal of exhaust components like catalytic converters for aging, performance testing, etc. Recent improvements in the catalyst aging methods require flanged-gasket joints that can withstand exhaust temperatures as high as 1200°C. Gasket materials previously used in these applications like the graphite based gasket materials have exhibited physical breakdowns, severe leakage, and general thermal failures under these extreme temperatures. In order to prevent these leaks, metal-reinforced gasket materials in a number of configurations were introduced to these extreme temperature environments to evaluate their robustness to these temperatures.

Cold start vehicle driveability performance depends on many parameters, one of which is the distillation character of the fuel. In the late 90's, a gasoline driveability index (DI) was developed for spark ignited combustion vehicles by a consortium of automotive and petroleum industry scientists based on correlation studies between controlled fuel quality matrices and vehicle performance under specific ambient conditions. The DI equation uses a weighted sum of gasoline distillation temperatures at the 10, 50 and 90 percent evaporation volumes, commonly called T10, T50 and T90. These three distillation volatility points are specified by the ASTM International D 4814 fuel specification and are seasonally adjusted. This paper studies the cold start driveability performance of Federal EPA Bin 5 and Bin 8 vehicles with respect to fuel distillation characteristics at temperatures other than T10, T50 and T90.