An Investigation of the Combustion and Emission Characteristics of Compression Ignition Engines in Dual-Fuel Mode

Abstract

Nowadays automobiles have become significantly essential to our modern life style. On the other hand, future of automobiles, built on the internal combustion engines, has been badly hit by the twin problems due to diminishing fuel supplies and environmental degradation. Thus, it is very important to identify some clean-burning, renewable, alternative fuels to ensure the safe survival of internal combustion engines. However, it is not possible to have a common alternative fuel for universal application in the existing engines that have been designed to operate on petroleum-based fuels. Towards this, scientists have proposed a range of solutions for diesel engines, one of which is the use of gaseous fuels as a complement for liquid diesel fuel. These engines, which use conventional diesel fuel and gaseous fuel, are referred to as ‘dual-fuel engines’. In this work an attempt is made to find the role of various operating parameters in optimizing engine operating and design parameters, and the effect of the type of gaseous fuel on the performance and emissions of the gas diesel engines. The ‘dual fuel concept’ is a promising technique for controlling both NOx and soot emissions even on existing diesel engine. But, HC, CO emissions and ‘bsfc’ are higher for part load gas diesel engine operations.