EXAMINATION OF THERMO-PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF ETHANOL AND GASOLINE NUMERICALLY AND ITS BEHAVIOUR AT DIFFERENT TEMPERATURES

Currently, the atmospheric pollution has become a major problem leading to global warming, air-borne diseases etc. In order to find a suitable solution to this problem, the entire world is now switching to the alternatives. The thermo-physical properties vary for the alternatives and in order to use these, it is very essential to study their variation. In this paper, properties of ethanol and gasoline are calculated by mathematical methods and their values and trends are used to predict their behaviour. Ethanol has a problem of cold-start and smoother flow; thus it is essential to study its behaviour throughout its path from fuel tank to the intake manifold. The temperature may vary roughly around 20 to 1000 C along its path as quoted by some research papers;thus this temperature range was chosen for the study. The viscosity was found to decrease slowly with temperature for ethanol than gasoline indicating poor fluidity. The values for density and thermal conductivity were found to be higher for ethanol when compared to gasoline. In addition to that, the lower specific heat of ethanol indicates its potential to suppress the problems associated with cold-start but only to minimal extent.