Determining optimal artificial neural network training method in predicting the performance and emission parameters of a biodiesel-fueled diesel generator

Abstract

Artificial neural network (ANN) methods were employed and suggested in modeling the emissions and performance of a diesel generator fueled with waste cooking oil derived biodiesel during steady-state operation. These papers are generally built on determining optimal network structure, but the modelling accuracy of an ANN is also highly dependent on employed training method. In modeling, operating conditions and fuel blend ratio were used as the inputs while the performance and emission parameters were the outputs. The modeling results obtained by conventional ANNs that were trained by back propagation (BP) learning algorithm, radial basis function (RBF), and extreme learning machine (ELM) were compared with experimental results and each other. The accuracy of the estimations by ELM was above 95% for all the output parameters except for specific fuel consumption and thermal efficiency. Moreover, ELM performed better than BP and RBF with lower mean relative error (MRE) in case where the emissions were estimated. The ELM provided correlation coefficients of 0.987, 0.950 and 0.996 for unburned hydrocarbons (HCs), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and smoke opacity (SO), respectively, while for BP, they were 0.973, 0.818, 0.993, and for RBF, 0.975, 0.640 and 0.981. The most suitable training function for each emission and performance parameters of diesel generator was determined based on obtained accuracies.