Evaluation of the effects of engine parameters on performance and emissions of diesel engine operating with biodiesel blend

Abstract

Diminishing resources, alarming pollution levels and escalating price associated with the application of diesel in compression ignition engine have forced scientific community throughout the world to conduct several experiments for the evaluation of biodiesel (BD) as a substitute for diesel. Due to difference in the physical and chemical properties of BD and diesel, the engine parameters such as compression ratio (CR), injection pressure (IP) and injection timing (IT) may not be optimum for BD, especially for higher blends. The present study is carried out with the aim to investigate the combined effect of CR, IP and IT on the performance and emission of a diesel engine widely used in agriculture sector in India, fuelled with B40 (40% BD and 60% diesel on a volume basis). Furthermore, this paper also aims to find the optimum engine parameters. A total of 27 sets of experiments were conducted for different combination of engine parameters and 162 sets of performance and emission data were recorded with varying load conditions. Adjustment of operating parameters was helpful to overcome the shortcoming of higher blend of BD (B40). The results demonstrated that higher CR (18:1) and IP (240 bar) along with advance IT (26° bTDC) is the best combination for a constant speed engine with brake power of 3.5 kW.