Patent ID: 7669463

Claim:
A method of determining a fuel consumption of an internal combustion engine, wherein fuel is supplied in a circuit to the internal combustion engine and discharged therefrom and wherein a quantity of fuel is supplied to the circuit via a branch line from a fuel tank and measured in the branch line, said method comprising the steps of: determining an apparently consumed quantity of fuel in the branch line; determining temperature-related changes in a volume of fuel within the circuit by: measuring the temperature of the fuel at a plurality of measuring points in the circuit; assigning to each measuring point a partial volume of the circuit; determining the partial volume change of the partial volumes as a function of temperature change in time at the measuring points; adding the partial volume changes in order to determine a total volume change; and calculating a corrective consumption value as a function of the total volume change; and correcting the apparently consumed quantity of fuel determined in the branch line by the temperature-related changes in the volume of the fuel within the circuit, so as to determine a consumed quantity of fuel.