Aug 7, 2007

General Motors joins Model Fuels Consortium

San Diego, California - Clean technology chemical company Reaction Design has announced that General Motors has joined the Model Fuels Consortium (MFC), which works to develop, validate and apply advanced simulation methods to improve engine and fuel design, resulting in increased fuel efficiencies and reduced emissions. GM joins existing members Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, Cummins Engine Company, Dow Chemical Company, Ford Motor Company, Honda, L'Institut Français du Pétrole, Mazda, Mitsubishi Motors, Nissan, PSA Peugeot Citroën, and Toyota.

"GM's membership in the MFC means a great deal to the consortium's work, both for their expert guidance as well as their real-world implementation of the fuel mechanisms and tools that are being developed," says Bernie Rosenthal, CEO of Reaction Design. "With the addition of GM, the MFC boasts two of the Detroit Three automakers and a majority of the Japanese auto manufacturers."

To manage an ever-expanding range of design options and their inherent trade-offs, engine and fuel developers have boosted their reliance on combustion simulation, instead of costly and increasingly inadequate empirical tests. Model fuels are a mix of pure chemicals that mimic the combustion behaviour of much more chemically complex commercial fuels in computer simulations. Once validated, the model fuels accurately simulate combustion, allowing fuel and engine designers to optimize engine performance and emissions control faster and at less cost than with traditional physical fuel/engine testing. The consortium's main focus is on validated fuel surrogates and associated computer simulation tools.

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