TRB Pubsindex
Text Size:
x

« Prev Next »

Return to Results | New Search

Bookmark and Share

Title:

Fuel Consumption of Gasoline Vehicles at High Speeds: Field Evaluation and Estimation Method

Accession Number:

01126789

Record Type:

Component

Availability:

Transportation Research Board Business Office

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States

Abstract:

The main objectives of this paper are two fold. First, the paper evaluates the impact of vehicle cruise speed on its fuel consumption rates at speeds up to 95 mph using field data gathered under real-world driving condition. Second, it investigates the fuel consumption during acceleration events and proposes a new method to estimate fuel consumption for these conditions. A Portable Emissions Measurement System (PEMS) unit was used to measure tail-pipe emissions of four light-duty gasoline vehicle. The fuel consumption rates were calculated based on standard carbon balance equation. The vehicles were tested on a 9-mile high speed track in Pecos, Texas while driving according to a pre-developed drive patterns. The drive patterns were used to ensure a good coverage of various steady-state and transitional operational modes of the vehicles. The results show the fuel economy of regular gasoline-powered vehicles drops drastically from 40 mph o 70 mph and then will follow a moderately decreasing pattern. A new metric, Fuel Acceleration Rate, was proposed and used to investigate the change in fuel consumption during an acceleration event. It was found that the minimum amount of fuel required to achieve a 1 mph increase in speed follows an exponential functional form. A regression relationship was developed to explain this pattern. Finally, calibration equations were established to estimate coefficients of this equation based on vehicles’ rated power and power-to-weight ratio. The proposed provides an easy to use tool to estimate fuel consumption and emissions inventories in applications such as such as sketch-planning, travel demand modeling, and mesoscopic traffic simulation.

Monograph Accession #:

01120148

Report/Paper Numbers:

09-2055

Language:

English

Corporate Authors:

Transportation Research Board

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States

Authors:

Farzaneh, Mohamadreza
Zietsman, Josias
Lee, Doh-Won

Publication Date:

2009

Conference:

Transportation Research Board 88th Annual Meeting

Location: Washington DC, United States
Date: 2009-1-11 to 2009-1-15
Sponsors: Transportation Research Board

Media Type:

DVD

Features:

Figures (3) ; References (9) ; Tables (2)

Uncontrolled Terms:

Acceleration pulse; Cruise speed

Subject Areas:

Energy; Environment; Highways; Vehicles and Equipment; I15: Environment

Source Data:

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2009 Paper #09-2055

Files:

TRIS, TRB

Created Date:

Jan 30 2009 6:23PM