Combustion of raw Camelina sativa oil in CI engine equipped with common rail system

Abstract

During the world energy transformation, using some vegetable oils as fuel enables the production of clean and inexpensive energy with the application of the well-known technology of the CI engine. The common rail (CR) fuel system gives many opportunities related to creating an air–fuel mixture and its efficient combustion. Can the system dedicated to diesel oil be used to inject vegetable oil and control its combustion effectively? This paper presents some results of the application of the injection strategy for raw Camelina sativa (CS) oil fueling. The test was conducted on the AVL single-cylinder CI engine equipped with a CR system for engine speed n = 1500 rpm and different excess air coefficients (1.1 < λ < 2.1). The engine parameters and performance obtained for raw CS oil were compared with the results obtained for diesel oil fueling for the same and slightly modified injection strategy. The experiment demonstrated how much the combustion process and its effects differ for these two fuels. In addition, several aspects related to the cultivation and use of Camelina sativa oil as a renewable energy source are presented.