Estimating Fuel Consumption from Engine Size

Abstract

Previous studies have demonstrated a useful relationship between fuel consumption and journey speed, vehicle weight, and idling fuel rate under urban driving conditions. The engine displacement has also been found to be strongly related to vehicle weight. The results of a statistical analysis of these known relationships with published data are presented. The objective is to establish equations for estimating fuel consumption from travel survey data such as journy speed and engine size. Two equations were found to give good estimates of journey fuel consumption. One equation is for urban driving conditions and the other is for steady speed conditions such as in rural and motorway driving. The correlations between the fuel consumptions under the two different driving conditions offer a possibility for developing an empirical equation for journey fuel consumption by taking into consideration the general patterns of travel and journeys.