Artigo Completo:

Accurate simulation of fuel properties influence in internal combustion engines performance is a very complex approach and combines many physical and chemical concepts such as combustion phenomena, chemical kinetics, fluid dynamics, turbulence and thermodynamics. The right modelling of that is still a challenge and currently available software packages for engines simulation usually consider standard or surrogate fuels. Besides that, new engine technologies, including those for sport motor application, can achieve better performances if custom fuels are formulated and applied. This development usually requires a large number of tests with different fuels, which leads to very expensive researches. Therefore, simulation is an option to reduce the number of tests and the associated costs. This paper presents the use of a response surface approach based on Radial Basis Functions to simulate a flexible fuel engine running with distinct blends of iso-octane, n-heptane, toluene and ethanol. Performance, energetic efficiency and pollutant emissions are predicted in different operating conditions.