Design Optimization of an Automotive Fuel Tank for the Minimization of Evaporative Losses of Gasoline Due to Thermal Conduction: Experimental & Analytical Approach

• Main Authors: Prashant Shukla, Ram Kunwer, Swapnil Sureshchandra Bhurat
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: AIDIC Servizi S.r.l. 2018-12-01
• Series: Chemical Engineering Transactions
• Online Access: https://www.cetjournal.it/index.php/cet/article/view/9516

Environment is being polluted due to several toxic gases like CO, CO2, NOx, and HC every day. The sectors responsible for disturbing the balance of atmosphere are mainly industrial and transportation. CO mainly evolved because of lack of oxygen during combustion, NOx evolve if combustion occurs at high temperature and HC released to the atmosphere from exhaust and evaporation of fuel from the fuel tank. Data collection and analysis revealed that the total evaporation loss is around 6 to 7 %. In this paper, an experiment was performed on a two-wheeler tank, which is made of carbon steel sheet metal. Carbon steel sheet metal is one of the major cause of gasoline evaporation due to its high thermal conductivity. In the experiment, evaporative losses of gasoline is quantified along with the heat transfer analysis on the fuel tank body. Experimental results revealed that evaporative loss in C-steel tank is 15.92% and in composite tank with insulated layer is 0.44%. Therefore, the obtained results must have a positive impact on environment i.e. low HC emission into the environment.