Energy xxx (2011) 1e9

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy

Experimental analysis on a spark ignition petrol engine fuelled with LPG

(liquefied petroleum gas)
Massimo Masi*
Department of Management and Engineering, DTG University of Padova, Stradella S. Nicola, 3, 36100 Vicenza, Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The use of LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) as alternative fuel to petrol is common practise in spark ignition
Received 29 September 2010 engines. While the main driving force to the use of LPG still remains the low cost for the end user, its
Received in revised form favourable pollutant emissions, in particular carbon dioxide, will in the middle term probably increase
7 April 2011
interest in LPG as an IC engine fuel. In addition, there are both theoretical and technical reasons to
Accepted 18 May 2011
consider LPG as an attractive fuel also in terms of engine performance. Despite the continuously
Available online xxx
increasing stock production of dual-fuel (petroleLPG) passenger car models, doubts still exist about both
real engine performance in LPG operation and the reliability of the dual-fuel feeding system. This paper
Keywords:
LPG
deals with the theoretical advantages of using LPG as fuel for SI engines. Brake performance tests of
Dual-fuel SI engine a passenger car engine fed with petrol and LPG are analysed and compared. The stock engine has been
Gaseous LPG injection equipped with a “third-generation” standard kit for dual-fuel operation. The performance reductions in
LPG ICEs performance LPG operation are discussed in both steady state and transient condition. The results of some modifi-
cations to the set-up of both the petrol and LPG metering devices, designed for a better justification of
the measured performance, are also presented.
Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction emission, Snelgrove et al. [2] report lower emissions of hydrocar-

Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is a mixture of hydrocarbons,
mostly propane (C3H8) and butane (C4H10) isomers. The composi-
tion of LPG depends on its end use and varies greatly according to
season, country, properties of the crude oil/gas supply used and
refining process. Today’s European LPG is a by-product derived
almost equally from natural gas (NG) extraction (55%) and petro-
leum refineries (45%). The LPG commercially available for the
automotive market has to comply with a standard [1] that does not
define compositions, but limits fuel properties only. As a rule of
thumb, countries having relatively cold climates tend to use
a higher propane percentage, while warmer countries mostly use
butane (see Table 1).
Although the LPG derived from refineries contains a very small
amount of sulphur, LPG (with NG) is considered as the most
ecological fossil fuel because it has a low carbonehydrogen ratio,
high purity, no toxicity, no corrosive activity and does not contain
aromatic hydrocarbons. Many studies attest that the emissions from
LPG-powered vehicles are lower than those from petrol-fuelled
equivalents. Besides the obvious reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2)
* Tel.: þ39 049 827 6746; fax: þ39 049 827 6785.
E-mail address: massimo.masi@unipd.it.
bons (HC,
40%) and carbon monoxide (CO,
60%) over the Euro-
pean Test Cycle at 25  C. The emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx)
from LPG fuels measured by Newkirk et al. [3] are lower than those
from petrol. However, it is well known that attention to the less
frequent running conditions of a modern engine fed by fossil fuels is
an essential condition for compliance with the increasing restric-
tions imposed by the current emission standards. For instance Gong
et al. [4] study the catalyst light-off behaviour in a one-cylinder
port-fuelled SI engine fuelled by gaseous LPG during the cold start
running condition. In particular they measure the influence of the
gas flow path length from the engine head to the three-way catalyst
inlet, the ignition timing and the idle revving speed.
The advantages of LPG fuelling in burn rate, lean mixture limit,
anti-knock performance and pollutant emissions have been studied
by Campbell et al. [5]. They present the results of an experimental
campaign carried out on a 1.4-l four-cylinder four-stroke spark
ignition engine modified to run with one cylinder fed with gaseous
LPG. Moreover the authors clearly explain the basic design of
a common LPG conversion system for gaseous fuel operation:
a heavy-gauge steel tank equipped with a pressure relief valve and
a safety fill stop device stores the saturated liquid LPG in equilib-
rium with its vapour.
LPG of very low quality flows through the non-return valve of an
evaporating device, driven by LPG vapour pressure itself, and

0360-5442/$ e see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.energy.2011.05.029

Please cite this article in press as: Masi M, Experimental analysis on a spark ignition petrol engine fuelled with LPG (liquefied petroleum gas),
Energy (2011), doi:10.1016/j.energy.2011.05.029
2 M. Masi / Energy xxx (2011) 1e9

called “third-generation” systems. These systems perform

Nomenclature a gaseous LPG sequential multi-point port fuel injection managed
by a “slave” ECU, which is in turn controlled by the main petrol ECU.
mep mean effective pressure The opening time pulses of the petrol injectors generated by the
hter,id thermal efficiency of the ideal cycle main petrol ECU are acquired by the LPG ECU, which multiplies
hind indicated efficiency (indicated to ideal cycle thermal them by a factor that accounts for the different duty cycle of the LPG
efficiency ratio) injectors. Corradini and Togninelli [7] report the details of different
hter engine global thermal efficiency techniques and strategies to operate gaseous LPG delivery systems.
hm mechanical efficiency (hter/hter,id/hind) Moreover, they describe how the need for two ECUs can be avoided
hv volumetric efficiency (mass of air flowing through by introducing a pressure regulation device on the injector rail in
a cylinder in a complete engine cycle to mass of air order to tune gas pressure to the value which makes the injectors
in ambient condition which could fill the volume duty cycle of petrol and gas equal.
swept by the same cylinder in a complete engine During the last ten years more and more researchers have
cycle) investigated liquid LPG injection by means of both numerical
ra air density of the engine breathing environment calculations and experimental tests (see, e.g., Watson and Phuong
[kg/m3] [8]). Boretti and Watson [9] have recently presented a computer
Hu lower heating value of the fuel [kJ/kg] model for the analysis of direct injection engines fuelled either by
F/A fuel-to-air ratio (fuel mass spent for the unit mass of LPG or by compressed natural gas (CNG). They consider both the
air flowing through the engine) homogeneous stoichiometric spark-ignited and the jet-controlled
c fuel consumption (mass flow rate delivered to lean stratified jet-ignited concepts. In spite of the advantages,
cylinders, [kg/h]) they find that the major challenge is the development of adequate
sfc specific fuel consumption (grams of fuel spent to LPG injectors. Cipollone and Villante [10] consider liquid-phase
obtain 1 kWh of shaft work) injection as one of the most important aspects of LPG-fuelled SI
w injector mass flow rate [kg/s] engines and use a 1D mathematical model to study the transient
A throttle section area of the injector [m2] phenomena occurring in an LPG injection system, focussing
p0, T0 total pressure [Pa] and total temperature [K] attention on the fuel-to-air ratio and liquid-phase control.
upstream of the injector rail Lee et al. [11] have analysed the penetration and evaporation
g specific heat ratio characteristics of LPG sprays using the Schlieren and Laser Induced
R gas constant [J/kg/K] Fluorescence (LIF) methods. Combustion has been visually exam-
Tmed identifier of the test condition in which LPG enters ined and numerical calculations have been performed using KIVA-3
the evaporator at 25.6  C to simulate various spray and combustion conditions.
Thot identifier of the test condition in which the LPG The great interest in liquid injection, the continuously
enters the evaporator at 31.5  C increasing stock production of dual-fuel (petroleLPG) passenger
Tcold identifier of the test condition in which the LPG car models equipped with gaseous LPG delivery systems, and the
enters the evaporator at 12.7  C commercial publications claiming that petrol and LPG have almost
the same performance, are circumstances that seem to attest that
high optimisation of gaseous LPG systems has been achieved.
completes the phase change. In this process, superheating is pref- Nevertheless, doubts about the actual performance gap between
erably restrained to the minimum extent and the minimum pres- LPG and petrol operation still exist.
sure value required for a satisfactory operation of the delivery This paper presents experimental research on the real perfor-
system must be guaranteed. Finally, a gaseous LPGeair mixing mance of up-to-date gaseous LPG port injection systems. After
device provides the reactant mixture to cylinder intake. The a brief discussion of the theoretical advantages and drawbacks of
performance of a recent OEM evaporator-pressure reducer device fuelling SI internal combustion engines with LPG, the test bed brake
has been studied by Price et al. [6] both theoretically and performance of a passenger car engine fed with petrol and LPG is
experimentally. compared. Engine design has been converted to dual-fuel operation
The early-generation LPG mixers, conventional Venturi- with one of the more recent commercial kits. The lower perfor-
controlled devices similar to petrol carburettors, have been sur- mance obtained using LPG instead of petrol both in steady state and
passed by gas electro-injectors actuated by an ECU sensing the transient operation is improved by a different set-up of the LPG
feedback of the exhaust oxygen probe. metering device. These results also are discussed considering
The up-to-date commercially available LPG feeding systems a different fuel-to-air ratio of the engine during petrol operation.
(OEM and aftermarket gaseous LPG injection systems) are the so-

Table 1 2. LPG as SI engine fuel

LPG composition as automotive fuel in Europe (source Urban 1982).

Country Propaneebutane (% by volume) Engine torque output for a given SI engine only depends on the
mean effective pressure (mep). This is defined as [12]:
Belgium 50e50
Denmark 50e50
F
France 35e65 mep ¼ hter;id hind hv ra Hu hm (1)
Greece 20e80 A
Ireland 100e0
Italy 25e75 The terms in Eq. (1) are ideal cycle thermal efficiency hter,id, indi-
Netherlands 50e50 cated efficiency hind, volumetric efficiency hv, air density of the
Spain 30e70 engine breathing environment ra, fuel-to-air ratio F/A, fuel lower
Sweden 95e5 heating value Hu and mechanical efficiency hm. Thus, the perfor-
United Kingdom 100e0
Germany 90e10
mance with the two different fuels (petrol and LPG) is different if
and only if at least one of the terms defining mep in Eq. (1) varies.

Please cite this article in press as: Masi M, Experimental analysis on a spark ignition petrol engine fuelled with LPG (liquefied petroleum gas),
Energy (2011), doi:10.1016/j.energy.2011.05.029
 M. Masi / Energy xxx (2011) 1e9
The discussion that follows is limited to gaseous LPG injection,
since this is the case considered in the present analysis.
For a given engine, the thermal efficiency (hter,id) of the ideal
airefuel cycle slightly increases with LPG because of its specific
heat ratio which decreases the overall fueleair mixture ratio
compared to petrol.
The LPG flame speed which is faster than petrol could theoret-
ically increase the indicated efficiency (hind) for two concurrent
reasons:
1. The greater the heat release rate, the greater the pressure at
combustion TDC and during the expansion stroke the higher
the indicated work;
2. The shorter the combustion duration, the lower the heat losses.
However, Campbell et al. [5] state that the burn rates measured
for the two fuels are not sufficiently different to justify a spark
advance rescheduling for close-to-stoichiometric engine operation.
Volumetric efficiency (hv), i.e. the parameter which mostly
affects power output, is worsened by gaseous LPG injection. For
stoichiometric mixtures and for a given cylinder volume, Watson
and Phuong [8] report that induced air decreases because 4.03% of
the air is displaced by LPG vapours compared to 1.65% of fully
vaporised petrol. Moreover, petrol vaporisation heat helps decrease
the temperature, so that the airefuel mixture introduced in the
cylinders is denser than that in the case of LPG.
The mechanical efficiency (hm) in full-load engine operation as
a first instance is independent on fuel type. However, the most
frequent operations of vehicle engines in urban traffic are in the
part-load running condition. Thus, inlet manifold pressure, which
in gaseous LPG fuelling is higher than during petrol operation for
the same load requirement, could offer a significant advantage in
terms of pumping loss reduction.
Finally, the product of air density (ra), fuel-to-air ratio (F/A), and
lower fuel heating value (Hu) have to be discussed. If F/A is the
stoichiometric ratio, this product is the maximum thermal energy
that can be released from the mixture that contains a unit volume
of air at reference conditions. This value is about 3.5 MJ/m3 at
ambient pressure and 15  C for both the fuels under discussion,
though slightly higher for LPG.
Apart from the performance criterion and in addition to the
remarkable feature of reducing usual pollutant emissions high-
lighted in the introduction to present paper, gaseous LPG offers
three other advantages in comparison with petrol:
a) it improves three-way catalyst efficiency and durability
because of the absence of unburned deposits, sulphur and
other poisoning substances;
b) it reduces benzene, toluene and xylene emissions;
c) it reduces engine maintenance and wear. In fact gaseous fuels
do not interfere with cylinder lubrication and the absence of
unburned deposits yields positive outcomes such as the
increase of the margin against abnormal combustion
phenomena and the increase of spark plug life.
In the light of this discussion, it is theoretically demonstrated
that gaseous LPG fuelling without other changes to an engine
originally conceived to burn petrol reduces power output, mostly
because of volumetric efficiency deterioration, even in the case of
an equal optimisation level of both the fuel delivery systems.
A non-optimised LPG injection system can augment power
output deterioration for one or both the two following reasons:
1) an excess of LPG superheating further reduces intake air
density;
Please cite this article in press as: Masi M, Experimental analysis on a spark ignition petrol engine fuelled with LPG (liquefied petroleum gas),
Energy (2011), doi:10.1016/j.energy.2011.05.029
3
2) a non-accurate LPG metering always reduces power output
and, in the case of rich mixtures, increases emissions and
lowers global thermal efficiency.
3. Engine test facility
The SI engine used for this research is tested in a soundproof cell
equipped with an intake air fan which supplies air for engine
breathing, exhaust extractors which remove combustion gases
from the room, and a variable-speed centrifugal fan which
preserves the engine thermal regime (see Fig. 1).
3.1. Engine
A four-stroke five-cylinder 2-l engine has been recovered from
a passenger car due to be scrapped. With minor modifications this
unit powered a range of vehicle models manufactured by FIAT
group S.p.A. from 1994 to 2001. The major specifications of the
original engine are summarised in Table 2.
The engine has been transformed for dual-fuel operation by an
up-to-date aftermarket kit which does not differ substantially from
most of the OEM LPG fuel systems fitted to passenger cars of many
worldwide manufacturers. The LPG kit is a sequential multi-point
port fuel electronic injection system which delivers the gaseous
LPG into the intake manifolds upstream of the petrol injectors. The
basic operation of the system and its components does not differ
from the brief description presented in the introduction to this
paper.
Some additional notes are needed for the evaporator, which is
one of the most critical components of the system. The conceptual
scheme of this device and the thermodynamic states of the LPG are
illustrated in the left and right sides respectively of Fig. 2. The solid
line 1-2-3-4 illustrates the progress of LPG through the evaporator.
This device actually has multiple functions since it provides:
1) a partial evaporation in the first co-flow passage of an LPG-
engine coolant heat exchanger where the heat flux q1 takes
nearly liquid LPG to the vapour quality corresponding to
thermo-dynamic state 2 in the pressureehentalpy (peh)
diagram;
2) a pressure reduction obtained by an orifice-plate system which
throttles the fuel until the pressure level 3 required by the
injector rail is achieved;
3) the evaporation completion in the second counter-flow
passage of the previous LPG-engine coolant heat exchanger
Fig. 1. The engine at the test bed.
4 M. Masi / Energy xxx (2011) 1e9

Table 2 the gas constant. Thus, in this operation scenario the evaporator
Engine technical data sheet. device should cope with the other two fundamental functions:
Parameter Value
Model FIAT 838 A1.000 1) assuring that p0 is always high enough to guarantee the
Type 4 stroke 5 cylinder inline SI chocked flow condition in the injectors;
Fuel Petrol 2) assuring that p0 and T0 are kept constant.
Swept volume 1998 cm3
Maximum 185 N  m @ 4500 rpm
torque Rail pressure is mechanically managed by this evaporator device
Maximum 107 kW @ 6100 rpm through a pre-loaded metal spring which acts on the orifice plate.
power The steel spring is partly balanced by the action of the manifold
Stroke 75.6 mm absolute pressure deriving from an adequate linkage between the
Bore 82 mm
Combustion Pent-roof 4 valves
evaporator and the air intake manifold. Accordingly, the pre-load of
chamber the metal spring in the evaporator device can significantly affect
Compression 10 engine performance during LPG operation because of its great
ratio influence on fuel metering. Installers of aftermarket LPG kits often
Distribution Double over-head camshaft (DOHC) with intake and exhaust
set the pressure level p0 of the evaporated LPG too low, in order to
variable timing device
Fuel metering Multi-point port fuel sequential electronic injection BOSCH enhance the impression of fuel saving in the end users of the
Motronic 2.10 engine.
Exhaust 3-way catalyst with lambda sensor
treatment
3.2. Instrumentation

where heat flux q2 brings the fuel to thermo-dynamic state 4
which allows the vaporisation of the residual liquid phase of
the fuel and guarantees a safety margin against the presence of
a liquid fraction in the injector rail. The latter task is hopefully
performed through the minimal degree of superheating.
In order to assure the hot fluxes at the heat exchanger surfaces
the evaporator device encloses the internal channel represented by
the dotted line path 1e2 in Fig. 2. This passage is a hydraulic circuit
placed in parallel to the passenger heating water circuit. Thus
engine coolant is kept upstream of the thermostatic valve which
adjusts the coolant flow to the main engine heat exchanger.
LPG metering is controlled by an auxiliary ECU, which corrects
the duty cycle of petrol injectors by a two-dimensional map usually
defined as a function of engine revving speed and petrol injector
opening time. The injection duration is settled by the primary ECU
as a function of the engine load. The amount of LPG delivered cycle
by cycle and for any engine operating condition is corrected by the
feedback of the pre-catalyst exhaust oxygen sensor. Actually, this
closed-loop control system is the one provided by the engine
manufacturer to optimise the amount of petrol delivered by the
original electronic injection system (see Table 2).
The electro-injectors act as chocked flow orifices. In this oper-
ating condition their mass flow rate (w) follows the well-known
equation:
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi  1 rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2 2 g
1 g the manufacturer, the uncertainty on temperature measurements
w ¼ Ap0
RT0 g þ 1 gþ1
where A is throttle section area, p0 and T0 are the total pressure and
temperature in the injector rail, g is the specific heat ratio and R is
The engine is coupled with a BorghieSaveri mod. FE-260S eddy
current electromagnetic dynamometer. The measurement accuracy
is 2.8 Nm for torque and 16 rpm for revving speed. Torque and
other performance parameters derived from torque have been
corrected following the ISO 3046-1 standard [13]. Fuel consump-
tion is obtained by a weight measure. The fuel tank is arranged on
a KERN mod. CB24K1N digital balance with a 24-kg full-scale
reading, a resolution of 0.001 kg and a maximum linearity error of
0.003 kg. Engine thermal regime is monitored by three tempera-
ture sensors located at the engine heat exchanger inlet and outlet
sections and in the lubricant sump. The sampling frequency for all
these data is 1 Hz.
The experimental apparatus also provides a sensor for the
manifold absolute pressure reading, and four temperature and four
pressure transducers for measuring the thermo-dynamic state of
the LPG and the engine coolant at their inlet and outlet sections in
the evaporator device. Thus, recalling the left side of Fig. 2, the
thermo-dynamic state of the fluids passing through stations 1 and 4
of the solid line path and stations 1 and 2 of the dotted line path is
known. The pressure sensors belong to the GE Druck PTX/PMP 1400
series and cover different operating pressure ranges; all of them
ensure a 0.15% accuracy. Lastly, an amperometric clamp which
captures the ECU pulse sent to cylinder 1 ignition coil is used to link
the measurements acquired at the evaporator with dynamometer
data. The sampling frequency for this data set is 1 kHz.
The adopted temperature sensors are K-type thermocouples
with grounded hot junction and compensated cables. According to
(2)
is 2.5 K.
The total data input is captured by three National InstrumentsÒ
acquisition boards (PCI 6071E, USB 9211 and USB 6218) and is
managed by the software LabViewÒ version 8.2.

3.3. Experimental campaign

The performance of LPG-fuelled engines is affected by the

evaporator device in two similar ways:

1) changes in weather conditions alter the heat exchange

between LPG and engine coolant, affecting both the degree of
LPG superheating and ambient air density.
Fig. 2. Evaporator device: heat exchange scheme (left); LPG thermodynamic states 2) evaporator design changes which yield different amplitudes of
(right). the heated surfaces alter the heat exchange, affecting the

Please cite this article in press as: Masi M, Experimental analysis on a spark ignition petrol engine fuelled with LPG (liquefied petroleum gas),
Energy (2011), doi:10.1016/j.energy.2011.05.029
 M. Masi / Energy xxx (2011) 1e9 5

degree of LPG superheating without modifying ambient air
density.
Three different test conditions were set to take into account
both eventualities:
 A standard condition where the temperature of the LPG
upstream of the evaporator was kept equal to 25.6  C. This
situation is typical of engine operation in average Italian
climatic conditions and in the following is identified as Tmed
test condition;
 A more demanding condition where the temperature of the
LPG upstream of the evaporator was kept equal to 31.5  C. This
situation is typical of engine operation in the Italian summer
and in the following is identified as Thot test condition;
 A test condition hereafter identified as Tcold, where the ambient
air temperature was similar to the previous condition (30  C)
but the temperature of the LPG upstream of the evaporator was
equal to 12.7  C to simulate a different heat exchange flux at the
LPG evaporator device.
More than 150 tests have been performed taking into account
four different loads and five different engine rotational speeds for
all test conditions. All these tests were performed by running the
engine in the “standard set-up” (see e.g. injection timing and
duration, spark advance.) that is:
 manufacturer settings during petrol operation;
 injection maps tuned by the ECU manufacturer to the injector
model and rail pressure level set by the LPG kit installer via
evaporator spring pre-load adjustment during LPG operation.
refer to the standard set-up described in the previous section.
Maximum torque and power prove to be slightly lower than those
declared by the manufacturer during petrol operation. This
depends partly on stock dispersion and partly on engine wear.
A notable performance deterioration appears for all the LPG
operations. In particular, brake torque (i.e. mep) is more than 20%
lower than that obtained in petrol operation when the LPG-fuelled
engine operated at the best performance test condition Tmed.
Moreover, comparison of these two test conditions shows a gradual
and continuous increase of the gap between the full load brake
torque curves. This trend is consistent with the increase of volu-
metric efficiency deterioration in LPG operation when the engine
rotational speed increases, as will be discussed later in this section.
However, to give a more incisive idea of the affects of these results
on the feeling perceived by the vehicle end user, some transient
measures are now presented from a simple test performed both in
petrol and in LPG operation. The engine has been forced to change
abruptly from idling to wide open throttle while the load applied by
the dynamometer increases with the square of the rotational speed.
This test simulates the unreal scenario of a passenger car engine
carried by a mass-less virtual vehicle provided with a given aero-
dynamic drag but no inertia other than that of the engine. Actually
the inertia of the small dynamometer rotor and its junction with
the engine flywheel is negligible in comparison to the sum of the
inertia of the wheels, the whole driveline and the gearing of
a passenger car.
From the second law of dynamics, taking into account no
driveline losses for a nearly rigid junction and neglecting its small
inertia as well as the inertia of the dynamometer rotor, the time-
dependent engine brake torque T(t) for the experimental set-up is
written up as:

In addition to these tests, which were performed to investigate

the evaporator device operation, some transient measurements
(described in Section 4) and other steady-state tests with a modi-
fied engine set-up were carried out both for petrol and LPG oper-
ation. In particular, a different pressure level in the fuel injector rail
coupled to the standard injection maps was tested in order to check
the sensitivity of engine performances to evaporator tuning.
4. Results
Fig. 3 shows the full load brake torque and power curves for the
petrol operation and the three LPG test conditions. All these tests
du
TðtÞ ¼ TL ðuÞ þ Ieng (3)
dt
where u is the rotational engine speed, TL(u) is the applied load,
and Ieng is the inertia of the engine. Eq. (3) states that the lower the
engine brake torque, the lower the engine acceleration if the type of
transient test remains the same. Thus, it is expected that the
difference in the engine brake torque observed from the steady-
state tests with engine fuelled by petrol and LPG will result in an
even more appreciable difference in the time response of the
engine. Fig. 4 shows the petrol and LPG (Thot condition) steady-state
brake torque together with the load curve TL(u) applied in the

200 T - Gasoline T - LPG Tmed 100

T - LPG Thot T - LPG Tcold 200
P - Gasoline P - LPG Tmed
180 P - LPG Thot P - LPG Tcold 90 180
160 80 160

140 70 140
Torque T [N x m]
Torque T [N x m]

Power P [kW]

120 60 120

100 50 100

80 40 80

60 30 60
T - Gasoline
40 20 40 T - LPG
dynamometer load
20 10 20

0 0 0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000
engine rotational speed n [rpm] engine rotational speed n [rpm]

Fig. 3. Full load brake torque (solid lines) and power (dotted lines) in petrol (triangles) Fig. 4. Transient test: steady state brake torque (petrol ¼ triangles, LPG ¼ squares) and
and LPG operation (diamonds ¼ Tmed, squares ¼ Thot, circles ¼ Tcold). dynamometer load (solid line).

Please cite this article in press as: Masi M, Experimental analysis on a spark ignition petrol engine fuelled with LPG (liquefied petroleum gas),
Energy (2011), doi:10.1016/j.energy.2011.05.029
6 M. Masi / Energy xxx (2011) 1e9

transient tests. The intersections between torque and load curves 900 18
sfc - load 100%
are the expected equilibrium operating conditions that will be 800 sfc - load 75% 16

specific fuel consumption sfc

taken after the time response of the engine fuelled with petrol and sfc - load 50%
sfc - load 25%
LPG respectively. The measured time history of brake torque and 700 c - load 100% 14

consumption c [kg/h]
c - load 75%
engine speed is plotted in Fig. 5. As expected from the reasoning 600
c - load 50%
12
c - load 25%
surrounding Eq. (3), the transient tests make the gap between

[g/kWh]
500 10
petrol and LPG performances increase. Despite the low frequency
sampling which deteriorates the time accuracy, some basic results 400 8
clearly appear:
300 6

 Steady state is achieved after about 6 s in petrol operation. Both 200 4

torque and engine speed reach their maximum values rough- 100 2
ly1 s later in LPG operation.
 Torque and engine speed maximum values in LPG operation are 0 0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000
considerably smaller than those in petrol operation.
 Power output is heavily penalised as it is almost halved in LPG engine rotational speed n [rpm]

operation.
It is quite evident that these results show a performance
reduction that exceeds the one expected theoretically because of
the volumetric efficiency drop considered in Section 2.
In order to check the reliability of fuel metering without avail-
able measurements on exhaust gas composition, two different
methods were explored:
1) the acquisition of the oxygen sensor signal;
2) the derivation of the engine air mass flow rate through the
voltage output of the hot wire sensor provided by the manu-
facturer for the petrol injection system.
With regard to the first option, many studies have noted that
oxygen sensor output depends not only on the desired air-to-fuel
ratio but also on the composition of the exhaust gas (see e.g.
Ref. [14]). Despite the slight importance of this question compared
to the measured differences in performance figures, the practical
circumstance of unexpected instability and slowness in the oxygen
sensor signal output made the second option more promising. The
latter confirmed a certain decrease in volumetric efficiency during
LPG operation, but at time of writing additional work is needed to
assure sufficient reliability of the measurements.
However, some considerations can be drawn from the fuel
consumption diagrams in Fig. 6. The LPG delivered by injectors
results in full load fuel mass flow rate (c) and specific fuel
200
T - Gasoline
175 T - LPG
n - Gasoline
n - LPG
150
Fig. 6. Brake specific fuel consumption (solid lines) and fuel consumption (dotted
lines) in LPG operation at different loads.
consumption (sfc) figures that seems to be in line with typical ones,
in particular at the low-to-medium regimes in which specific fuel
consumption indicates a high energy conversion efficiency. In fact,
the relation between sfc and global thermal efficiency (hter) of an
engine is:
hter ¼ 1=ðsfc Hu Þ: (4)
46,000 kJ/kg is the lower heating value Hu of the LPG used in the
tests which was a 53e47% by mass propaneebutane mixture. As
a consequence, the full load thermal efficiency of the tested engine
during LPG operation never falls below 0.29, except at idle regime.
The behaviour is less clear at high rotational speeds (above
5000 rpm). The simultaneous decrease in fuel mass flow rate and
sfc matches with a volumetric efficiency drop hypothesis and may
perhaps confirm the reliability of fuel metering. However, as will be
demonstrated later, the excessively low values of specific fuel
consumption (i.e. the high thermal efficiency) depend on poor fuel
delivery masked by the well-known wide range tolerated by LPG
lean combustion (see e.g. Ref. [5]).
Some inferences on volumetric efficiency behaviour may result
from the experimental data in Fig. 7, in which manifold pressure
relative to ambient condition is plotted for different engine oper-
ating conditions. The negative pressure values quantify the pres-
sure losses in the intake system upstream of the injectors.
As is well known, the general form of pressure losses Dp in fluid
8000
flows is:
7000
v2
Dp ¼ zr (5)
6000 2
engine speed n [rpm]

Mean fluid velocity (v) depends on the volumetric flow rate,

Torque [N x m]

125 T hot 5000 which in turn depends on engine rotational speed. On the other
hand, the overall pressure loss coefficient (z) depends on piping
100 4000
geometry and throttle position. Thus, the reduction of the fresh
charge density (r) makes the volumetric efficiency decrease
75 3000
progressively for a given throttle position and rotational speed
50 2000 when the engine switches from petrol to LPG fuelling, or when it
operates with LPG at Tcold, Tmed, and Thot in that order.
25 1000 Leaving aside the disproportionate global performance wors-
ening, which deserves further discussion, these three LPG test
0 0 conditions are able to give some useful knowledge about the
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 performance of the evaporator device. Fig. 8 shows the change in
time [s]
LPG thermodynamic state operated by the evaporator. The
Fig. 5. Transient performance: brake torque and engine speed. Comparison between diagrams referring to the usual and less demanding Tmed operating
petrol (triangles) and LPG e Thot (squares) operation. condition (Fig. 8 above) show that:

Please cite this article in press as: Masi M, Experimental analysis on a spark ignition petrol engine fuelled with LPG (liquefied petroleum gas),
Energy (2011), doi:10.1016/j.energy.2011.05.029
 M. Masi / Energy xxx (2011) 1e9 7

Gasoline - load 100% exp parabolic fit (R=0.991) 80 8

0.05
LPG T med- load 100% exp parabolic fit (R=0.996)
LPG T hot - load 100% exp parabolic fit (R=0.989) 70 7
Manifold relative pressure [Pa*1E-5]

LPG T cold - load 100% exp parabolic fit (R=0.998)

Temperature T [°C]
LPG T med - load 75% exp parabolic fit (R=0.996) 60 6

pressure p [Pa*1E-5]
LPG T med - load 50% exp parabolic fit (R=0.990) T LPG in T LPG out
p LPG in p LPG out
0.00 50 5
40
T med 4
30 3
-0.05 20 2
10 1
0 0
-0.10 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000
engine rotational speed n [rpm]

T LPG in T LPG out

-0.15 80 p LPG in p LPG out 8
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 70 7
engine rotational speed n [rpm]

Temperature T [°C]
60 6

pressure p [Pa*1E-5]
Fig. 7. Manifold pressure (relative to ambient) for all the full load test conditions and 50 5
T hot
for the part loads (Tmed condition).
40 4

30 3
a) The rail injector pressure level (p0 in Eq. (2)) slightly decreases
20 2
at higher engine revving speeds. In fact the pressure level of
10 1
LPG exiting the evaporator (p LPG out in Fig. 8), which is almost
equal to p0, progressively decreases instead of remaining 0 0
constant as hopefully required by the task 2 in Section 3.1. 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000
However, the operation of the evaporator device may be engine rotational speed n [rpm]
considered satisfactory because of the simplicity of a purely
T LPG in T LPG out
mechanical evaporator device. On the other hand, the 80 p LPG in p LPG out 8
decreasing trend of p LPG out is coupled with a decrease in the 70 7
pressure in the intake manifolds (see Fig. 7) which helps to
Temperature T [°C]

60 6
comply with task 1 in Section 3.1. Actually the chocked flow

pressure p [Pa*1E-5]
T cold
condition of the injectors seems to be preserved at all engine 50 5
revving speeds except for regimes higher than 5000 rpm. 40 4
However, the pressure ratio at the injectors never exceeds 110% 30 3
of the critical pressure ratio value.
20 2
b) A satisfactory thermodynamic state for the gaseous LPG exiting
the evaporator device is obtained only at the medium-to-high 10 1
engine rotational speed, while the LPG temperature value (T 0 0
LPG out in Fig. 8) indicates a high degree of superheating, 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000
especially at lower engine regimes. engine rotational speed n [rpm]
c) The low pressure level in the fuel rail (p LPG out) resulting from
Fig. 8. LPG thermodynamic states before and after the evaporator device in full load
the original regulation of the evaporator allows the low specific
operation at Tmed (above), Thot (middle) and Tcold (below) (“in” and “out” refer to
fuel consumption (and therefore money saving) already high- stations 1 and 2 respectively along the solid line path of Fig. 2 e left).
lighted in the discussion about Fig. 6, but is not suited to reach
maximum brake torque. Thus, the very notable performance
deterioration of the LPG-fuelled engine cannot be ascribed only excessively low level of LPG saturation pressure in the tank. As
to a volumetric efficiency reduction and to potential evaporator a consequence the wet high quality LPG entering the evaporator
ineffectiveness. device outflows:

The excessive superheating occurring in the LPG evaporator  too superheated, because the heat flux required to complete
device during Thot operation clearly appears in Fig. 8 (middle). Once the vaporisation becomes much smaller than the flux origi-
again a satisfactory regulation of the reduced pressure (p LPG out), nated by the amplitude of the evaporator heated surface;
which seems roughly constant, is performed, but the device  badly metered, because of the excessively low total pressure
delivers to the injectors a gaseous LPG that is at least 10  C hotter level within the injector rail.
than the very low quality LPG entering the device. This happens
even at high rotational speeds, when heat exchange with engine Fig. 9 shows the full load brake torque and power obtained
coolant becomes more difficult. during LPG operation with two different pressure levels in the fuel
The unexpected poor results obtained with LPG operation at rail. Lines with diamond marks refer to the original LPG pressure
Tcold need further discussion. The worst brake torque obtained in level adjusted by the installer of the dual-fuel kit. For the sake of
this operating condition is inconsistent with the volumetric effi- comparison these lines report the performance data of the engine
ciency performance, which is theoretically expected to be better in LPG operation during the Tmed test condition already shown in
than in the other LPG test conditions. The main reason for this Fig. 3. The lines marked with square symbols indicate the perfor-
behaviour is explained in Fig. 8 (below). The low temperature of the mance data obtained after the increase of the LPG pressure level.
small supply tank that is peculiar to the Tcold tests causes an This modified set-up keeps the fuel injection timing unchanged. In

Please cite this article in press as: Masi M, Experimental analysis on a spark ignition petrol engine fuelled with LPG (liquefied petroleum gas),
Energy (2011), doi:10.1016/j.energy.2011.05.029
8 M. Masi / Energy xxx (2011) 1e9
T - Gasoline std P - Gasoline std
200 T - Gasoline mod. P - Gasoline mod.
T - LPG std P - LPG std
T - LPG mod. P - LPG mod.
180
160
140
Torque T [Nm]
120
100
80
60
40
20
0 0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000
engine rotational speed n [rpm]
Fig. 9. Full load brake torque (solid lines) and power (dotted lines) in operation with
petrol (triangles ¼ manufacturer settings; circles ¼ modified fuel metering) and LPG
(diamonds ¼ installer settings; squares ¼ modified fuel metering).
this way the fuel-to-air ratio is gained by a constant factor for any
operating condition of the LPG-fuelled engine and the fuel mixture
becomes enriched. The measurement comparison:
 does not disagree with the hypothesis of insufficient fuel
delivery due to an original adjustment of the LPG metering
device probably intended to maximise fuel saving;
 confirms a greater sensitivity of the engine performance to the
manual settings of the mechanical devices of the LPG evapo-
rator. These settings prove to be much more significant than
the fuel-to-air ratio corrections of the auxiliary LPG ECU;
 demonstrates that the closed loop control governed by the
signal of the exhaust oxygen sensor is not able to compensate
for some of the potential manual settings of the LPG evaporator
device;
 shows that is possible to obtain a remarkable improvement of
the LPG-fuelled engine brake performance, which reduces its
difference from petrol operation.
Fig. 9 also illustrates the comparison between the performance
of the petrol-fuelled engine operating with the fuel pressure level
designed by the manufacturer (lines with triangle marks, see also
Fig. 3), and with reduced rail injector pressure (lines marked with
circles). As occurred during LPG operation, it appears that a reduc-
tion in fuel injector pressure, i.e. a shift towards lean mixtures,
causes a reduction of brake performance. In other words the same
type of modification in the fuel metering system settings gives the
same result in terms of performance trend, although the adjust-
ment applied to the petrol injection system shows effects less
marked than that obtained in LPG operation.
These conclusions are strengthened by the consumption data
shown in Fig. 10. We shall first discuss the measures related to
engine operation during petrol fuelling. Triangle marks in Fig. 10
stand for measurements related to the original petrol injection
system settings, while circle marks characterise the data acquired
after reduction of the injector rail pressure level. The lower the rail
pressure level, the lower the quantity of petrol delivered to cylin-
ders and as a natural consequence the lower the engine
consumption (lines with filled marks). It is well known that the fuel
metering maps recorded in the standard ECUs by almost all
manufacturers of passenger car engines, such as the one used for
present experimental study, provide fuel-rich mixtures for any
rotational speed regime in case of full throttle operation [15]. Fuel-
Please cite this article in press as: Masi M, Experimental analysis on a spark ignition petrol engine fuelled with LPG (liquefied petroleum gas),
Energy (2011), doi:10.1016/j.energy.2011.05.029
350 35
200
specific fuel consumption sfc
300 30
180
consumption c [kg/h]
160 250 25
[g/kWh]
140 200 20
Power P [kW]
120
150 15
100 sfc - Gasoline std
100 sfc - Gasoline mod. 10
80 sfc - LPG std
sfc - LPG mod.
c - Gasoline std
60 50 c - Gasoline mod. 5
c - LPG std
c - LPG mod.
40 0 0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000
20
engine rotational speed n [rpm]
Fig. 10. Full load specific fuel consumption (solid lines) and consumption (dotted lines)
in operation with petrol (triangles ¼ manufacturer settings; circles ¼ modified fuel
metering) and LPG (diamonds ¼ installer settings; squares ¼ modified fuel metering).
to-air ratios shift from close-to-stoichiometric values towards very
rich fuel concentrations as the demand for engine power increases.
In other words, the closed-loop control of the fuel-to-air ratio ob-
tained with the aid of the oxygen sensor signal is progressively
ignored by the ECU when the engine speed increases during full
load operation. Thus the mixture enrichment increases towards the
maximum power output value, which generates higher specific fuel
consumption and lower thermal efficiency than those obtained by
stoichiometric mixture burning. In view of this, the shift down of
the specific fuel consumption data (lines with unfilled marks)
occurring with the above reductions in fuel consumption and brake
torque when the petrol pressure level is lowered clarify that the
fuel mixture moves towards leaner values which improve the fuel
oxidation completion and the engine thermal efficiency. The same
trend of the consumption and specific fuel consumption lines
versus the engine rotational speed is observed when the engine is
fuelled by LPG (lines with square and diamond marks), and the
obvious lower consumption values are measured when the pres-
sure level inside the gas injector rail is lower. However, the increase
applied to the pressure level inside the injector rail causes specific
fuel consumption results which are quite different from previous
petrol tests. In particular, the higher the pressure level in the
injector rail, the higher the LPG delivered to cylinders, and the
lower the specific fuel consumption measured. This experimental
evidence suggests that the gas mixtures obtained by both the
pressure levels imposed in the injector rail during the tests remain
in the lean range between the flammability limit and the stoi-
chiometric value. Moreover, the lean mixture limit is perhaps over-
climbed when the original set-up suggested by LPG kit installers is
applied. This confirms once more the previous hypothesis of
insufficient gas delivery.
5. Conclusions
An experimental research on the actual performances of an up-
to-date gaseous LPG port injection systems has been presented.
Theoretical reasons for the performance reduction of SI engines
designed for petrol operation when fuelled with gaseous LPG have
been discussed. An SI internal combustion engine of a passenger car
has been converted to dual-fuel operation with one of the more
recent commercial kits and has been experimentally tested. The
steady-state global performance, supported by the results of some
transient test, leads to the significant conclusion that the noticeable
performance deterioration in LPG operation is due both to a dete-
rioration of volumetric efficiency and to insufficient fuel delivery.
 M. Masi / Energy xxx (2011) 1e9
The volumetric efficiency seems to be worse than the theoretical
expectation because of excessive LPG superheating. This consider-
ation has been confirmed by the acquisition of LPG thermodynamic
state upstream and downstream of the evaporator-pressure
reducer device. These measures show that:
a) the coolant flow rate into the evaporator (or alternatively the
heat exchanger surface of the evaporator device) is too large for
low-to-medium engine rotational speeds. Superheating over-
compensates for the cooling of gaseous LPG due to the pressure
reduction section of the device;
b) For medium-to-high rotational speeds the superheating which
follows gas cooling due to pressure reduction keeps the LPG
temperature across the evaporator-pressure reduced device
almost constant;
c) For high rotational speeds the device causes an overall cooling
of the gaseous LPG which should be the most favourable
operation condition in relation to volumetric efficiency.
However, it was demonstrated that the global performance
obtained during LPG operation is worsened also because of insuf-
ficient delivery of LPG to combustion chambers. Present measure-
ments, due to the lack of volumetric efficiency data acquisition, are
not able to quantify precisely the contribution of the fuel metering
system settings to the difference between engine performance
during petrol and LPG operation. However, the analysis presented
indicates that the performance of the “third-generation” kit for
petroleLPG dual-fuel operation is greatly affected by the settings of
the mechanical components of the LPG evaporator device. While
the ultimate limit of petrol engine performance fuelled by LPG still
remains to be fully established by present measurements, it can be
stated that there is still a lot of work to do in order to improve the
reliability of the latest gaseous LPG port injection systems.
Please cite this article in press as: Masi M, Experimental analysis on a spark ignition petrol engine fuelled with LPG (liquefied petroleum gas),
Energy (2011), doi:10.1016/j.energy.2011.05.029
9
Acknowledgments
The author gratefully acknowledges Andrea Lazzaretto and
Andrea Toffolo for their precious suggestions, and Federico Pavin
and Antonio Sturniolo for the help in the instrumentation set-up.
References
[1] EN 589. Automotive fuels e LPG e requirements and test methods; 2008.
[2] Snelgrove DG, Dupont P, Bonetto R. An investigation into the influence of LPG
(Autogas) composition on the exhaust emissions and fuel consumption of 3
bi-fuelled Renault vehicles, SAE Paper 961170; 1996.
[3] Newkirk M, Smith L, Payne M, Segal J. Reactivity and exhaust emissions from
an EHC-equipped LPG conversion vehicle operating on butane/propane fuel
blends. SAE Special Publications, 1208; 1996. p. 195e206.
[4] Gong C, Huang K, Deng B, Liu X. Catalyst light-off behavior of a spark-ignition
LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) engine during cold start. Energy 2011;36:53e9.
[5] Campbell M, Wyszynski P, Stone R. Combustion of LPG in spark-ignition
engine. SAE Paper 2004-01-0974; 2004.
[6] Price P, Shengmin G, Hirschmann M. Performance of an evaporator for a LPG
powered vehicle. Applied Thermal Engineering 2004;24:1179e94.
[7] Corradini F, Togninelli M. Gas pressure regulation to drive LPG/CNG systems
with standard petrol ECU. SAE Paper 2003-01-0709; 2003.
[8] Watson HC, Phuong PX. Why liquid phase LPG port injection has superior
power abd efficiency to gas phase port injection. SAE Paper 2007-01-3552;
2007.
[9] Boretti AA, Watson HC. Development of a direct injection high flexibility CNG/
LPG spark ignition engine. SAE Paper 2009-01-1969; 2009.
[10] Cipollone R, Villante C. A/F and liquid-phase control in LPG injected spark
ignition ICE. SAE Paper 2000-01-2974; 2000.
[11] Lee S, Kusaka J, Dalsho Y. Mixture formation and combustion characteristics of
directly injected LPG spray. JSAE Paper 20030009; 2003.
[12] Heywood JB. Internal combustion engine fundamentals. Singapore: McGraw-
Hill Book Co.; 1988.
[13] ISO 3046-1. Reciprocating internal combustion engines e performance; 2002.
[14] Peyton Jones JC, Jackson RA. Potential and pitfalls in the use of dual exhaust
gas oxygen sensors for three-way catalyst monitoring and control. Proceed-
ings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part D 2003;217:475e88.
[15] van Basshuysen R, Schäfer F. Internal combustion engine handbook. War-
rendale, PA: SAE International; 2004.