Ahfaz Ahmed

Primary Reference Fuels (PRFs) as Surrogates for Low Sensitivity Gasoline Fuels

The authors wish to thank Adrian Ichim for performing the engine experiments. This work was supported by KAUST and the Saudi Aramco FUELCOM program.

Numerical Simulations of High Reactivity Gasoline Fuel Sprays under Vaporizing and Reactive Conditions

This work was sponsored by the Saudi Aramco under the FUELCOM II program and by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. The computational simulations utilized the clusters at KAUST Supercomputing Laboratory and IT Research Computing. The author thanks Convergent Science Inc. for providing CONVERGE license.

Standardized Gasoline Compression Ignition Fuels Matrix

Direct injection compression ignition engines running on gasolinelike fuels have been considered an attractive alternative to traditional spark ignition and diesel engines. The compression and lean combustion mode direct injection of fuel eliminates throttle losses yielding higher thermodynamic efficiencies and the better mixing of fuel/air due to the longer ignition delay times of the gasoline-like fuels allows better emission performance such as nitric oxides (NOx) and particulate matter (PM). These gasoline-like fuels which usually have lower octane compared to market gasoline have has been identified as a viable option for the gasoline compression ignition (GCI) engine applications due to its lower reactivity and lighter evaporation longer ignition delay characteristics compared to diesel and lighter evaporation compared to gasoline fuel. The properties, specifications and sources of these GCI fuels are not fully understood yet because this technology is relatively new. In this work, a GCI fuel matrix is being developed based on the significance of certain physical and chemical properties in GCI engine operation. Those properties were chosen to be density, temperature at 90 volume % evaporation (T90) or final boiling point (FBP) and research octane number (RON) and the ranges of these properties were determined from the data reported in literature. These proposed fuels were theoretically formulated, while applying realistic constraints, using species present in real refinery streams gasoline-like fuels. Finally, three-dimensional (3D) engine computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were performed for using the proposed GCI fuels and the similarities and differences were highlighted.