Investigation and Demonstration of a Rich Combustor Cold-Start Device for Alcohol-Fueled Engines

Alcohol fuels such as methanol and ethanol show great promise for mitigating some of the problems associated with using petroleum-based fuels in vehicle engines. However, because the alcohol fuels have low vapor pressures, vehicles running on them sometimes have problems starting under cold conditions. Researchers at the University of Tennessee investigated the use of a rich combustor to aid incold starting spark-ignition engines fueled with either neat ethanol or neat methanol. The rich combustor burns the alcohol fuel outside the engine under fuel-rich conditions to produce a combustible product stream that is then fed to the engine to aid cold starting. Testing under this project resulted in reliable cold starts on both neat methanol and neat ethanol at temperatures as low as -20deg. C.