Ethanol Impacts on Fuel Supply Parts of Gasoline Engines in Thailand 2009-32-0112

In Thailand, gasoline mixtures with 85% ethanol by volume so called E85 recently available with guaranteed lower selling price are expected to replace the former types of gasoline. The looming change leads to certain concerns on material compatibility with E85 for automobiles deliberately not designed to run by the blends. Fluid immersion tests complying with SAE and ASTM standard were performed to the parts. The metallic and polymeric parts were submersed in test fluids inside an oven in which temperature had been maintained at 55 ± 2°C for at least 2000 hours. Weekly collected data, i.e. physical appearances and physical properties, were statistical evaluated for parts' compatibility to E85 by comparing the data to those collected derived from the other parts submersed in E10 test fluid. A significant level of differences indicates incompatibility of a part with an assumption that the part is already compatible with E10.