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A regular flex-fuel engine can operate on any blend of fuel between pure gasoline and E85. Flex-fuel engines have relatively low efficiency on E85 because the hardware is optimized for gasoline. If instead the engine is optimized for neat ethanol, the efficiency may be much higher, as demonstrated in this paper. The studied two-liter engine was modified with a much higher compression ratio than suitable for gasoline, two-stage turbocharging and direct injection with piezo-actuated outwards-opening injectors, a stratified combustion system and custom in-house control system. The research engine exhibited a wide-open throttle performance similar to that of a naturally aspirated v8, while offering a part-load efficiency comparable to a state-of-the-art two-liter naturally aspirated engine. NOx will be handled by a lean NOx trap. Combustion characteristics were compared between gasoline and neat ethanol.

The evaporation of different fuels and fuel components in hollow-cone sprays at conditions similar to those at stratified cold start has been investigated using a combination of planar laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) and Mie scattering. Ketones of different volatility were used as fluorescent tracers for different fuel components in gasoline-like model fuels and ethanol-based fuels. LIF and Mie images were compared to evaluate to what extent various fuel components had evaporated and obtained a spatial distribution different from that of the liquid drops, as a function of fuel temperature and time after start of injection. A selective and sequential evaporation of fuel components of different volatility was found.

Gasoline and gasoline-ethanol sprays from an outward-opening piezo-injector were studied in a constant volume/pressure chamber using high-speed imaging and phase doppler anemometry (PDA) under stratified cold start conditions corresponding to a vehicle ambient temperature of 243 K (−30°C/−22°F); in-cylinder air pressure of 5 bar, air temperature of 350 K (−30°C/−22°F) and fuel temperature of 243 K. The effects of varying in-cylinder pressure and temperature, fuel injection pressure and fuel temperature on the formation of gasoline, E75 and pure ethanol sprays were investigated. The results indicate that fuel composition affects spray behaviour, but less than expected. Furthermore, varying the temperature of the fuel or the air surrounding the spray also had minor effects. As expected, the fuel injection pressure was found to have the strongest influence on spray formation under stratified conditions.