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Ethanol is one of many alternative transportation fuels that can be burned in internal combustion engines in the same ways as gasoline and diesel. Compared to hydrogen and electric energy, ethanol is very similar to gasoline in many aspects and can be delivered to end-users by the same infrastructures. It can be produced from biomass and is considered renewable. It is expected that the improvement in fuels over the next 20 years will be by blending biomass-based fuels with fossil fuels using existing technologies in present-day automobiles with only minor modifications, even though the overall costs of using biomass-based fuels are still considerably higher than conventional fuels. Ethanol may represent a significant alternative fuel source, especially during the transition from fossil-based fuels to more exotic power sources. Mapping engines for flexible fuel vehicles (FFV), however, would be very costly and time consuming, even with the help of model-based engine mapping (MBM).

The interaction between in-cylinder flow and injected fuel spray in direct ignition spark ignition (DISI) engines have been investigated. The study shows that the major effect of intake flow on the fuel spray is that the induced flow tends to make the spray collapse. This deformation of spray will prevent the fuel spray from spreading out, evaporating, and mixing well with air and also increase fuel wetting on the wall. It has been demonstrated that the intake flow effect on the fuel spray can be alleviated by increasing the masking between the two intake ports. Swirl and tumble motion effects on the fuel air mixing and wall wetting in DISI engines were also studied. A counter-rotating vortex structure is identified in the case with tumble dominating in-cylinder flow structure. This vortex structure tends to hinder fuel air mixing and increase wall wetting. It is shown that some swirl motion is helpful to improve mixing quality and decrease the wall wetting.