Presentation
Composition OF CTCM
Fuel engines Technical Committee brings together members of the GFC:
- Automanufacturers and equipment suppliers,
- Oil companies,
- Additives suppliers
- Resting laboratories
- Users
THE objectiVEs OF CTCM
The CTCM - Committee Technique of fuel engines--is within the GFC, a forum of discussions and study of issues relating to properties and characterization of fuels for internal combustion engines.
Composed of experts in the relevant technical areas (analysis, use, development...), the CTCM has for essential missions the sharing of experiences at national and European levelas well as piloting the sub-groups whose studies focus on assessment and monitoring of evaluation methods.
OrganiZation
Chairman of CTCM : Alain QUIGNARD (IFPEN)
The Member companies of the CTCM are as follows:
- AFTON, BASF, FEV, IESPM, IFPEN,
- INNOSPEC, LUBRIZOL, MOTUL, NYCO, groupe PSA, RATP, RENAULT,
- ROBERT BOSCH, SGS, SNCF, TOTAL, VOLVO
Activities
THE USEFULLNESS OF CTCM
The CTCM tests methods created by the CTCM are tools reliable and regularly used by the industry to evaluate the performance of fuels for internal combustion engines.
They were created in the continuing effort to offer to the end user - the motorist - quality products, validated by a set of tests standardized, relevant, reliable and recognized by all the oil and automobile industry.
The main methods used to evaluate the influence of the quality of fuels or additives on the performance of the engines. So the GFC-CTCM catalogue offers test methods aimed at reproducing the following phenomena:
- clogging of injectors and other components,
- oxidation phenomena,
- wear of some mechanical parts ( injection pump…),
- driveability, cold or hot, of gasoline or diesel vehicles.
THE BIRTH OF A TEST METHOD
The creation of a test method is primarily motivated by the aim of reproducing - at a lower cost-, a phenomenon identified or potential on engine in service. This may be necessary as a result of a problem observed in use, or during the development of new engine technologies, which we want to assess the sensitivity to the properties and the quality of fuels.
A working group, said investigative, can therefore be established to document the problem, make a synthesis and assess the need for the creation of a specific test method. Where this need would be clearly established, When the test method is no longer used or becomes obsolete, it loses the official recognition of the GFC. The group becomes a project group, which is entrusted with the role of development of the test method to reproduce the phenomenon.
The final product of the Working Group is a ready to use test method, validated by inter-laboratory tests, which have demonstrated the statistical validity (discrimination, repeatability, reproducibility) of the results obtained.
After validation of this method, the Group becomes a monitoring group, and is responsible for the organization of regular round robin tests, in order to follow closely, during the lifetime of the method, its characteristics of accuracy and relevance.
It is also this monitoring group that can organize campaigns of exploitation of the method e.g. operating to characterize a market or to decide on the obsolescence of a method and its withdrawal (availability of parts, loss of representativeness…).
THE DEVELOPMENT OF A TEST METHOD
When the first version of the test method is finalized and the circular test campaign is ready to be engaged, the method is known as experimental, and it receives the "X" status. When this campaign is concluded and if the results were good in quality and acceptable in precision, the method is said Tentative, and receives the "T". The status 'A', as approved, is obtained only after circular tests showing a good reproducibility, defined with the participation of statisticians from the GFC.
When the test method is no longer used or becomes obsolete, it loses the official recognition of the GFC.