Technical Paper
Self-Controlled Electronic Cold Start System for Flexible Fuel Vehicles
2014-09-30
2014-36-0208
Flexible fuel vehicles have been a challenge for the automotive industry due to the chemical properties of ethanol combustion. Especially on days in which the ambient temperature is below 18 degree Celsius, flexible fuel starting is critical due to high ethanol flash point. To solve this problem, cold start systems have been implemented in flexible fuel vehicles. Cold start systems that inject gasoline to assist in starting have been widely used. However, they dramatically increase the level of pollutant emissions during the cold start phase and they depend on the driver interactivity to refill the system with gasoline. Cold start systems using electric pre-heating have been recently launched into the automotive industry.
