Experimental investigations on the performance of SI engine with Ethanol-Premium gasoline blends

Abstract

Alcohols are one of the best possible alternative fuels for gasoline because of the reason of their bio-based sources. The alcohols may be used as different types of fuels such as ethanol, methanol, propanol and butanol. These alcohols contain good energy content as a blended fuel and a high octane number. Ethanol has been successfully implemented in many countries of the world. This research work focused on the characterization of ethanol as a fuel. The experimental work was carried out to investigate the performance of ethanol-premium gasoline blends on a four-stroke, four-cylinder, multi-point fuel injection (MPFI) spark-ignition (SI) engine. The engine operational performance of pure regular gasoline (normal) and ethanol-premium gasoline blends on various concentrations of ethanol blends have been tested. The different fuel blended samples tested were - E0R (0% ethanol and 100% regular gasoline), E6.25P (6.25% ethanol and 93.75% premium gasoline), E10P (10% ethanol and 90% premium gasoline) and E20P (20% ethanol and 80% premium gasoline) named as F1, F2, F3, and F4 respectively. The varying concentrations of ethanol-premium gasoline blends were evaluated for their engine operating parameters such as brake mean effective pressure (BSFC), brake torque (BT), brake power (BP), brake thermal efficiency (BTE) and brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) with varying speed and load. The different speed and load combinations tested were 2200, 3200 and 4200 rpm at 5 kg, 10 kg, 15 kg and 20 kg. The outcomes revealed that the performance parameters such as BMEP, BT, BTE and BSFC were improved with the increase in speed up to 3200 rpm; BP was improved up to 4200 rpm with increasing load. With the increase in the blending percentage, the engine performance went lower. From the research work carried out, it was found that the sample blends with lower per cent of a blend of ethanol i.e. F2 performed substantially well and can be used as a substitute for currently used regular gasoline.