Applied Thermal Engineering 40 (2012) 198e201

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Applied Thermal Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

Cold start characteristics of an ethanol-fuelled engine with heated intake air

and fuel
Luis Carlos Monteiro Sales a,1, Jos Ricardo Sodr b, *
a
b

FIAT Powertrain Technologies, Product Engineering, Rodovia Ferno Dias, BR 381, km 429, 32530-970 Betim, MG, Brazil
Pontical Catholic University of Minas Gerais, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Av. Dom Jos Gaspar 500, 30535-901 Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 26 November 2011
Accepted 24 January 2012
Available online 4 February 2012

The conventional cold start system of exible fuel engines introduces gasoline in the intake system when
the vehicle is fuelled with hydrous ethanol or with high ethanol content gasoline-ethanol blends. The
system is necessary to allow for ignition of the fuel-air mixture under low temperatures due to the high
ethanol evaporation temperature, in comparison with gasoline. This works presents a new cold start
system for exible fuel engines with heating of intake air and ethanol injector. The removal of the
gasoline reservoir for cold start is the main benet of the new system, and it is an awaited evolution of
exible fuel engines. The experimental results demonstrate that the new system provides hydrous
ethanol-fuelled engine start in less than 2 s under temperatures as low as 0
C.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Ethanol
Cold Start
Internal Combustion Engines

1. Introduction
The physicalechemical properties of ethanol directly inuence
engine cold start. While gasoline-fuelled engines can start at
ambient temperatures as low as 40
C, ethanol-fuelled engines
can only start at temperatures over 13
C without the need of a cold
start system [1,2]. Ethanol evaporation temperature is 78
C, while
the light hydrocarbon compounds of gasoline start to evaporate at
40
C. Table 1 shows the main properties of hydrous ethanol (6.8%
wt/wt water) and a blend of 22% anhydrous ethanol (0.7% wt/wt
water) and 78% gasoline.
To overcome the ethanol cold start difculties, ethanol-fuelled
vehicles are equipped with an auxiliary gasoline injection system.
Gasoline is injected during the cold start and warm-up period.
Although this system reduces cold start problems, it is desirable to
eliminate the system to reduce costs, to free car owners from the
need to use a secondary fuel when fuelling with ethanol, and to
reduce cold start emissions [3].
The conventional cold start system is constituted by a small
gasoline reservoir, an electronic fuel pump and an electronic valve
[2]. The addition of gasoline to the intake pipe is done through
a pipe with calibrated holes. Gasoline is added to the intake pipe

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 55 31 3319 4911; fax: 55 31 3319 4910.

E-mail addresses: luis.monteiro@br.fptpowertrain.com (L.C. Monteiro Sales),
ricardo@pucminas.br (J.R. Sodr).
1
Tel.: 55 31 2123 5321; fax: 55 31 2123 5074.
1359-4311/$ e see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2012.01.057

during cold start and warm-up period. The amount of gasoline

added to the intake pipe is controlled by the engine electronic
control unit that actuates on the electronic fuel pump and on the
electronic valve.
Further developments on the conventional cold start system
include the substitution of the pipe with calibrated holes by one or
more electronic fuel injectors [4]. Nevertheless, it still requires the
use of gasoline as an auxiliary fuel for cold start of ethanol-fuelled
vehicles. An evolution of the cold start system with an electronic
fuel injector for gasoline injection is the use of a fuel distributor at
the injector inlet [5]. This system allows for more accurate control
of the gasoline amount injected.
Recent attempts try to eliminate the use of gasoline and all
components of conventional cold start systems through ethanol
heating [6e11]. In some cases, the time required to fully heat the
injected ethanol can be very long for acceptable cold start standards. Depending on the ambient conditions, the heated fuel
amount may not be enough to promote engine start. If heated
ethanol is introduced in the intake pipe in a point far from the
intake valve, excessive heat loss to the cold intake air may prevent
ethanol to reach the combustion chamber with an adequate
temperature for vaporization.
Heating of the fuel line was an alternative presented by Boyle
et al. [6] for cold start of E85 fuel (85% ethanol and 15% gasoline).
The authors used 950 W electric resistances to warm the fuel line.
Heating of E85 allowed for cold start and operation of a converted
vehicle with similar performance as when it used gasoline as the
original fuel.

L.C. Monteiro Sales, J.R. Sodr / Applied Thermal Engineering 40 (2012) 198e201
Table 1
Physical-chemical characteristics of hydrous ethanol and a blend of 22% anhydrous
ethanol and 78% gasoline [3].
Parameters

78% Gasoline 22%

anhydrous ethanol

Hydrous ethanol

Density (kg/m3)
Low heating value (kcal/kg)
Stoichiometric air/fuel ratio
Chemical structure
Carbon content (wt %)
Hydrogen content (wt %)
Oxygen content (wt %)
Sulfur content (wt %)
Self-ignition temperature (
C)
Evaporation temperature (
C)
Latent heat of vaporization
(kcal/kg)
Research octane number
Motor octane number
Vapour pressure (bar)

740
9400
13.07:1
C6.39H13.60O0.61
76.7
13.6
9.7
0.09
400
40 to 220
105

810
5970
8.70:1
C2H6.16O1.08
50.59
12.98
36.42
0
420
78
237

e
80
27.5

106
87
29

Brunocilla and Lepsch [7] performed a numerical and experimental analysis of a heating system for each ethanol injector. The
system allowed for ethanol heating up to 70
C within 10 s, at the
pressure of 4.2 bar. Engine start at ambient temperatures below 5
C
could be achieved, with cold start time between 2.0 and 4.0 s. The
heated ethanol jet was more favourable to vaporization and minimized fuel condensation in the intake manifold and cylinder head.
The application of this strategy in a exible fuel vehicle for the
Brazilian market was later presented in detail by Sbragia et al. [8].
Pontoppidan et al. [9] analysed the use of a secondary injector to
introduce heated ethanol in the intake manifold, having a similar
function to the strategy of gasoline introduction for cold start. As an
advantage, this system did not require an auxiliary reservoir, as the
heated ethanol was provided from the same fuel line of the main
injectors.
Kabasin et al. [10] presented an ethanol heating system located
inside the injector, thus optimizing the heat transfer to the fuel. The
fuel injectors were provided with an electrically heated internal
thermal insert. Short et al. [11] used a similar system to validate
a model based on computational uid dynamics. A cold start time
of 3.0 s at 5
C was achieved.
Using a different strategy, Buchdid et al. [12] described an intake
air heating system for exible fuel engines operating with over 80%
of ethanol concentration at ambient temperatures below 20
C,

199

discarding the use of gasoline for cold start and warm-up operation.
The heating device was consisted by a 600 W electric resistance
inside a thermally insulated cylinder. The system is mounted
externally to the intake manifold. During cold start and warm-up
acceleration, the throttle valve was closed and a by-pass system
diverted the intake air to the heating system. The intake air ow
rate was adjusted to keep idle engine operation, causing a slight
pressure drop during cold start. It was observed that increased
intake air temperature together with reduced pressure helped to
increase ethanol vaporization. At the ambient temperature of 10
C
the engine did not start without the air heating system, but with
the air heating system activated a cold start time of 10 s was achieved. At the ambient temperature of 5
C the engine started after
27 s with the air heating system on, but when the ambient
temperature dropped to 0
C the engine could not be started.
The new cold start system presented in this work is consisted by
simultaneous or isolated heating of the intake air and the ethanol
injected, according to the ambient conditions. The air heater is
positioned in the intake pipe, closed to the throttle valve body,
while ethanol heating is provided by electric resistances installed in
the injector couplings. The electric resistances are activated a few
seconds before cold start by an electronic circuit. After the engine is
fully warmed the electric resistances are deactivated.

2. Experiments
The intake pipe and the fuel line of a production vehicle
equipped with a 1.4-L, four-cylinder, four-stroke, ethanol-fuelled,
exible fuel spark ignition engine were modied to allow for
installation of an air heater after the throttle valve body and
electric resistances in the fuel injectors. The gasoline introduction
components of the conventional cold start system were removed.
The fuel injectors were insulated to reduce heat loss to the
environment.
An extra 12 V, 65 A/h battery was used as power source to the
intake air and ethanol injector heaters. The electric power available
for the intake air heater was 300 W, while 150 W was available for
each ethanol injector resistance. Fig. 1 shows the electric circuit for
the intake air heater and ethanol injector heaters. During the tests
the heating system was turned on 8.0 s before ignition key switch.
The recorded input voltage and current were 10.1 V  0.1 V and
35.5 A  0.5 A, respectively.

Fig. 1. Schematics of the electric circuit of the intake air and ethanol injector heaters.

200

L.C. Monteiro Sales, J.R. Sodr / Applied Thermal Engineering 40 (2012) 198e201

Fig. 2. Temperature measurement positions.

Thermocouples were installed in the ethanol injectors, in the

intake pipe, after the air heater, and in the intake manifold, close to
the intake ports. Fig. 2 shows the thermocouple locations.
Temperature data was recorded at the frequency of 10 Hz using
a digital oscilloscope.
The cold start tests were performed in the vehicle previously
conditioned in a cold chamber at 0
C during 12 h. The heating
system was activated 8.0 s before ignition key switch, when the
driver door was open. The cold start time was considered as the
period from ignition key switch until the engine reached 800 rev/
min. During the period of 1.5 s after ignition key switch the throttle
valve was kept fully open to allow for replacement of the cold air
mass ahead of the heater by the heated air mass owing through
the heater. That was the necessary period for the total substitution
of the cold air mass in the intake manifold and in the cylinders by
the heated air mass owing through the heater.

2250
2000
1750

70
60

1500

50

1250

40

1000

30

750

20

500

10

250

TEMPERATURE (o C)

ENGINE SPEED (rev/min)

80

MIXTURE TEMPERATURE AT INTAKE PORT

ETHANOL TEMPERATURE AT INJECTOR
AIR TEMPERATURE AFTER HEATER
ENGINE SPEED

-10
0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

3.5

4.0

TIME (s)
Fig. 3. Variation of engine speed, intake air temperature, ethanol temperature and
ethanol-air mixture temperature during cold start at ambient temperature of 0
C.

3. Results and discussion

Fig. 3 shows the variation of engine speed with time, together
with ethanol temperature in the injector, air temperature in the
intake pipe, prior to the injector location, and ethanol/air mixture
temperature close to the intake port.
After a heating period of 8.0 s prior to cold start, the engine was
started with the heating system kept continuously activated. In the
rst 1.5 s after the ignition key switch the throttle valve was
completely open to allow for the substitution of the cold air mass in
the intake manifold by the heated air mass as it was owing
through the heater. From this period the engine speed was
increased from 350 rev/min to 800 rev/min in 0.2 s. Thus, the
average cold start time obtained from three tests performed in the
vehicle equipped with the cold start system with heated intake air
and ethanol was 1.7 s  0.2 s (Fig. 3). This result is satisfactory,
considering that the cold start time of 2.0 s has been used as
a standard for cold start tests of modern production vehicles. The
uncertainty of this result was calculated according to [13].
The temperature of ethanol in the injector was reduced
from58
C to 35
C as the heated fuel mass was replaced by
a owing cold fuel mass (Fig. 3). At 1.7 s after ignition key switch,
the intake air temperature prior to the injector location and the
ethanol/air mixture temperature close to intake port reached 6.5
C
and 9.0
C, respectively. This temperature reached by the fuel/air
mixture was enough to promote engine start at the ambient
temperature of 0
C. Increased mixture temperature contributes to
improve fuel jet and increases ethanol vaporization and constant
pressure specic [7,10].
4. Conclusions
For a production vehicle powered by a 1.4-L, ethanol-fuelled
spark ignition engine, the use of a 300 W electric resistance
located in the intake pipe to heat the intake air together with 150 W
electric resistances actuating on each fuel injector was shown to be
an adequate technique to allow for a satisfactory cold start time.

L.C. Monteiro Sales, J.R. Sodr / Applied Thermal Engineering 40 (2012) 198e201

Ethanol temperature at injector reached 58
C after ignition key

switch, while ethanol/air mixture temperature was 9
C in the
intake port by the time the engine started at the ambient
temperature of 0
C. Under those conditions, the cold start time
dened by the period from ignition key switch until the engine
reached the speed of 800 rev/min was 1.7 s, which is about 15%
below the acceptable standard for modern production vehicles.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank FIAT Powertrain Technologies for the nancial support to this project.
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