03 July 2019

Low-temperature combustion (LTC) engine concepts such as homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) offer the potential of improved efficiency and reduced emissions of NOx and particulates. However, engines can only successfully operate in HCCI mode for limited operating ranges that vary depending on the fuel composition. Unfortunately, traditional ratings such as octane number poorly predict the autoignition behavior of fuels in such engine modes, and metrics recently proposed for HCCI engines have areas of improvement when wide ranges of fuels are considered. In this study, a new index for ranking fuel suitability for LTC engines was defined, based on the fraction of potential fuel savings achieved in the FTP-75 light-duty vehicle driving cycle.