| Abstract |
This report describes program design and data collection in the EPAct/V2/E-89 light duty gasoline vehicle fuel effects study, which examined the exhaust emission impacts of changes in five fuel properties (ethanol, T50, T90, aromatics, and RVP (specified as DVPE)) over a range covering current market fuels and potential mid-level ethanol blends. Testing was performed by Southwest Research Institute, and program sponsors were the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Energy via the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Coordinating Research Council, and the Lubrizol Corporation. The fuel matrix consisted of 27 fuels arranged according to a partial factorial design optimized for selected interactions of interest, plus an E85 fuel tested on a subset of vehicles. The test vehicle fleet consisted of 15 new light duty cars and trucks of 2008 model year selected from among high sales makes and models to provide a representative sample of the fleet of properly-operating vehicles meeting the U.S. Federal Tier 2 emission standards. Given the relatively low level of emissions from these vehicles, a number of design and procedural steps were undertaken to minimize the impacts of measurement variability and other artifacts on data quality. |
