Reaction Design Launches Automotive Fuels Consortium

Chevron, Dow Chemical Company, L'Institut Francais du Petrole (IFP), Mitsubishi Motors, Nissan, PSA Peugeot Citroen, and Toyota Join Together to Advance the Development of Cleaner Burning, Higher-Mileage Vehicles

SAN DIEGO, Oct. 17 -- Reaction Design, a leader in computer- aided chemical-process simulation, today announced the launch of its Model Fuels Consortium ("MFC"). The goal of the Consortium is to enable the design of cleaner-burning, more-efficient engines and fuels by accelerating the development of software tools and databases to streamline and bolster these advances. Charter members include: Chevron, Dow Chemical Company, L'Institut Francais du Petrole (IFP), Mitsubishi Motors, Nissan, PSA Peugeot Citroen, and Toyota. Additional member companies are expected to join the consortium over the next two calendar quarters.

Engine manufacturers worldwide are under regulatory and economic pressures to improve both emissions and fuel efficiency. Designers must tackle these issues while addressing the emergence of cleaner and higher performance fuels, and new engine technologies, such as homogeneous-charge compression-ignition (HCCI). Meanwhile, the costs of engine testing are rapidly rising, while testing and empirical approaches are proving increasingly inadequate in addressing the wide range of design options and tradeoffs faced by development groups. As a result, engine and fuel design are progressively more closely coupled and rely heavily on the use of simulation as a cornerstone of their development methodologies.

Since fuels such as diesel, gasoline or kerosene consist of several thousand unique chemical components, "Model Fuels" containing a smaller number of surrogate chemical compounds are preferable for use in simulation. To use surrogate or "Model Fuels" effectively in simulation, it is necessary to create tools and validated chemical descriptions of these chemical compounds and their chemistries. This is the main focus of the work of the consortium.

Industrial researchers and academic experts from MFC Member companies join Reaction Design engineers to focus on developing, validating, and applying simulation methods to improve the state-of-the-art in engine and fuel design. In addition to consortium members and advisors, Reaction Design has recruited leading industry and academic advisors, including Chief Technical Advisor Charlie Westbrook, widely regarded as one of the pioneers in combustion modeling while at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Prof. Anthony Dean from Colorado School of Mines, Prof. William Green from MIT, Prof. Mitsuo Koshi from University of Tokyo, and Prof. Ulrich Maas from Karlsruhe University.

"Close collaboration among fuel and auto industry leaders is essential for the continued development of tools and models that help solve fundamental fuel efficiency and pollution reduction challenges," said Bernie Rosenthal, CEO of Reaction Design.

About Reaction Design

Reaction Design is the exclusive developer and distributor of the CHEMKIN software package, the de facto standard for modeling gas-phase and surface chemistry. Reaction Design focuses on chemical process design and improvement for engines, combustors, and reactors. Its world-class engineers, chemists, and programmers have expertise that spans multi-scale engineering from the molecule to the plant. Reaction Design serves more than 350 customers in the commercial, government, and academic markets. Reaction Design also offers the KINetics software package, which brings detailed kinetics modeling to other engineering applications, such as Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) programs. CHEMKIN(R) and Reaction Design(R) are registered trademarks of Reaction Design. KINetics and Model Fuels Consortium are trademarks of Reaction Design. For more information please see www.fuelmodeling.com

Quotes:

"I am delighted to be a part of this project that brings together fuel and auto industry leaders, to help address the important challenges of improved fuel efficiency and pollution reduction."

- Charlie Westbrook, Chief Technical Advisor of the MFC,

"MFC can be the best platform to discuss the hydrocarbon oxidation chemical kinetics for future fuels and engines. I look forward to contributing to the MFC in combining the knowledge of chemical kinetics and the phenomena in engines."

- Hiromitsu Ando, Chief Executive Scientist, Mitsubishi Motors Corporation

"Simulation is an increasingly important part of engine development to maximize Enviro-Friendly performance, and the work we are doing with Reaction Design will help us advance our capabilities in this area."

- Shigeo Furuno, General Manager of the Power Train Engineering Division of Toyota.

"IFP is fully involved in the development of new combustion strategies applicable to internal combustion engines and high performance fuels, which are key points for engine optimization, fuel economy and reduction of pollutant emissions. Its participation in the MFC is a great opportunity to collaborate with worldwide automotive engine OEM's, oil companies and research laboratories towards the common goal of environment protection."

- Antonio Pires da Cruz, Assistant Professor of IFP