These days, vehicle manufacturers are confronted with a wide range of fuels in varying qualities and compositions. For instance, diesel cetane numbers fluctuate widely in the USA, and in Asia fuel is sometimes shown to contain high amounts of sulfur. All the same, our diesel specialists make sure that engines meet emission standards and durability specifications by optimizing calibration. Beside this, we are also working on engine concepts for alternative fuels, such as biodiesel or DME, which, compared with fossil diesel, are completely different in terms of their chemical composition. We keep an eye on the technical and political trends and can use our test benches to examine all alternative fuels as well as their effects on engine components. Cooperating with manufacturers and universities, we conduct fundamental studies on the way constituents influence fuel properties.

Board experience with flex fuel and gaseous-fuel engines

In the gasoline-fuel domain, we are looking closely at the subject of “flex fuel”: Our experts are in the process of examining the material compatibility of benzene-alcohol mixtures. They adapt the engine management system (using an optimized cold-start strategy, for example), re-engineer exhaust-gas aftertreatment and take care of calibrating ethanol sensors. And we can develop counter-measures if problems occur with additives, such as MMT. Synthetic gasoline fuels are another key field of our work – using endoscopic laser measurement technology, for example, we examine the way they influence engine operation on our modern test benches.

We have been fitting out vehicles with gaseous drive systems for almost 20 years – today, there are over 5,000 IAV gaseous-fuel vehicles on the world’s roads. Besides this, our specialists develop new concepts and construct demonstrator vehicles that run on CNG or LPG. We develop combustion processes, adapt exhaust-gas aftertreatment and study different engine concepts on our numerous gaseous-fuel test benches.