Fuel System and Fuel Measurement - Decreasing Fuel Consumption and Exhaust Gas Emissions in Transportation - page 58

Chapter 4
Fuel System and Fuel Measurement
The fuel economy of SFC of the engine is usually measured on the test bench
under nominal conditions and represented in a consumption identification diagram.
The real fuel consumption in travelling, flying and shipping normally differs from
the consumption on the test bench. Road vehicles', airplanes', and ships' real fuel
consumption depends on the performance, load, speed, and operation conditions at
first.
The Type Approval (TA) of the road vehicle's, ship's, or airplane's engine has
been developed for examinations at the test bench with defined test cycles. The
analyzers are usually large devices certified by national authorities.
The direct method is the measurement of fuel consumption. The indirect
method is the analysis of carbon emissions and then mathematically calculating
the fuel consumption on the basis of the CO 2 balance [ 1 ].
Currently, fuel consumption is monitored by small sensors with a quick
response time. Their basic principles are conductivity, capacitivity, ultrasound
technology, and radiometry. Figure 4.1 shows the different variants of fluid flow
measurement [ 2 ].
Depleting the tanks is to be strictly avoided in all types of vehicles, aircrafts,
and ships. The amount of fuel in a tank is usually measured by static pressure or
capacitive sensors at the bottom of the tank and by a floating switch at the surface
of the fuel. Few methods continuously estimate the fuel flow in the fuel pipe
between the tank and the engine. Combinations of static and dynamic control
methods are useful for safety reasons.
Fuel management systems record fuel consumption, fuel transfer, and refilling
of tanks. Fuel management considers the daily consumption of the entire fleet,
down to individual fuel tanks and maintains a complete history of all events,
providing reports for billing purposes and integrating timely fuel inventory.
Fleet wide fuel purchase, fuel consumption, and, in the future, emissions, i.e., the
complete financial system can be continuously controlled by using the Internet [ 3 ].