Experimental investigation of the behaviour of a DI diesel engine fuelled with biodiesel/diesel blends having effect of raw biogas at different operating responses

Abstract

The ever-growing consumption and rapid exhaustion of fossil fuels along with environmental concern continue to be an important issue for researchers around the world. The quest for improving direct injection (DI) diesel engine performance and reducing emissions has led researchers to explore various aspects of alternate sources of fuels and also have a possibility of dual fuel mode operation. These DI diesel engines use conventional liquid diesel fuel supplemented with gaseous fuels. The present contribution involves, experimental investigation as well as the implementation of response surface methodology (RSM) technique to evaluate the performance of DI diesel engine using biodiesel blends of polanga biodiesel and alcohol along with dual fueling of the engine when gaseous fuel i.e. biogas partially replaces the liquid diesel in the engine. The input parameters considered are types of fuel, speed of the engine, air flow rate and engine load whereas brake thermal efficiency (BTE), volumetric efficiency (VE), and exhaust gas temperature (EGT) along with emission parameters carbon monoxide (CO), (nitrogen oxides) NOx and hydrocarbon (HC) were considered to be the resulting output parameters. The overall good engine performance has been observed at an optimum setting of engine input variables through RSM which is 1495 RPM, 5.8 kg load, 48 mm air flow rate and polanga biodiesel with 10% biogas. The corresponding optimum engine responses of VE, BTE, EGT, NOx, HC, and CO has been observed as 68.92%, 23.62%, 172 oK, 966 ppm volume, 34.65 ppm volume and 0.0876 ppm volume respectively.