Effect of vegetable oil share on combustion characteristics and thermal efficiency of diesel engine fueled with different blends

Abstract

Diesel engines are one of the most widespread internal combustion engines in the world. However, the requirements of the Environmental saving and decreasing in fossil fuels quality demand on searching the alternative fuel composition, which will be more environmentally friendly. Using different Biofuels allows decreasing the impact on the environment. There are a lot of researches devoted to the investigation of different plant oils as additives to diesel fuel. However, most of them are limited to standard engine parameters investigation. Nowhere was an attempt to evaluate the efficiency of the engine in terms of energy conversion.An experimental investigation has been carried out to analyze the combustion characteristics and thermal efficiency of a diesel engine at constant engine speed fuelled with diesel and its blends (10, 20, 30, 40, and 50%) with linseed oil. The methodology for the determination of the thermal efficiency of the thermodynamic cycle was developed.The results show the effect of the amount of linseed oil in the blends with pure diesel has non-monotonous behavior. The best combustion characteristics and energy conversion efficiency were observed with 20% of the linseed oil share. The worst combination is the blend of 30% linseed oil and of 70% pure diesel. The results mean that the addition of the linseed oil to the fuel mixture has an ambiguous influence on engine performance.