PREMATURE SHUT OFF POSSIBILITY PREDICTION FOR AUTOMOTIVE FUEL TANK SYSTEM

Prediction of the possibility of a vehicle fuel tank supply process prematureshut off is of main concern for the automotive industry. The main objectiveof this work is to show that premature shut off can be explained by the absenceof a steady state after the initial transient in the fuel supply process. Thevehicle fuel tank considered in this work is composed only of a rectilinearpipe inclined with respect to the horizontal and connected to the top of arectangular tank. The counter-current two-phase flow in the pipe is modeledusing the one-dimensional drift flux model and the tankis modeled as a control volume where mass conservation for each phase isconsidered. Linear stability analysis of the two-phase flow model shows theabsence of the steady state phase for a range of liquid flow rates before theflooding condition is achieved as a function of tube inclination and length.This fact suggests that premature shut off occurs due to the absence of asteady state regime phase during the fuel supply process.