Experimental analysis for assessing noise and vibration of the diesel engine fuelled with a butanol–diesel blend under different injection pressures and engine speeds

Abstract

Because there is still insufficient information about the effects of changing the fuel injection pressure with an alcohol–diesel blend on engine vibration and noise emission, in this study, the effects of changing the fuel injection system and the diesel–alcohol blend on engine vibration and noise emissions were investigated experimentally. The butanol was homogeneously mixed with conventional diesel fuel at a concentration of 10%. This blend was called B10D90. To investigate the effect of B10D90 on vibration and noise characteristics of a single-cylinder diesel engine, petroleum-based diesel fuel (D100) was selected as a reference fuel. The experimental studies on the single-cylinder diesel engine were carried out in five different engine speeds of 1600, 2000, 2400, 2800 and 3200 rpm under a constant load mode 80% and additionally three different injection pressures of 190 bar, 210 bar and 230 bar. The results showed that the addition of butanol in conventional diesel fuel generally increased engine vibration values at 190 bar, 210 bar and 230 bar fuel injection pressures. For all injection pressures, the differences between the noise level of the B10D90 blend and D100 appears to be about 2–3 dBA. This difference showed that the B10D90 blend has little effect on the noise emission of the engine.