Abstract
Common rail (CR) diesel fuel injection systems are very sensitive to variations in fuel properties, thus the impact of alternative fuels on the durability of the injection system should be investigated when considering the use of alternative fuels. This work studies a high-pressure CR (HPCR) diesel fuel injection system operating for 400 h in an injection test bench, using a fuel blend composed of an alternative paraffinic fuel and conventional diesel (50PF50D). The alternative fuel does not have aromatic components and has lower density than conventional diesel fuel. The injection system durability study was carried out under typical injection pressure and fuel temperature for the fuel pump, the common rail and the injector. The results show that the HPCR fuel injection system and its components (e.g., piston, spring, cylinder, driveshaft and cam) have no indication of damage, wear or change in surface roughness. The absence of internal wear to the components of the injection system is supported by the approximately constant total flow rate that reaches the injector during the whole the 400 h of the experiment. However, the size of the injector nozzle holes was decreased (approximately 12%), being consistent with the increase in the return fuel flow of the injector and rail (approximately 13%) after the completion of the study. Overall, the injection system maintained its operability during the whole duration of the durability study, which encourages the use of paraffinic fuels as an alternative to conventional diesel fuel.
Highlights
The technology for the development of fuel injection systems in modern engines has evolved radically in the last two decades to fulfil the increasingly restrictive vehicle emission regulations.The application of the contemporary high-pressure common rail (HPCR) diesel fuel injection systems enable the accurate control of fuel injection as well as the possibility to perform multiple high-pressure fuel injection events
For a more detailed analysis, the fuel pump components were scanned using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and compared to the micrographs taken before the durability test
The findings obtained for this fuel blend are comparable to those obtained using conventional diesel, reporting no damage to the fuel pump and its components after durability studies [28,29]
Summary
The technology for the development of fuel injection systems in modern engines has evolved radically in the last two decades to fulfil the increasingly restrictive vehicle emission regulations. Studies mainly focus on biodiesel fuel when investigating the compatibility of the injection system components with alternative fuels These include the corrosion caused by the use of palm biodiesel on bronze and copper components within the fuel injection systems [18,19], shown to be more significant compared to conventional diesel. Paraffinic/diesel fuel blends with low percentages of paraffinic fuel produce comparable fuel injection system deterioration [23,24,25,26] and have similar thermal oxidation stability properties compared to conventional diesel fuel. Those results position synthetic paraffinic fuels as a suitable clean fuel candidate. (c) the wear of the injection nozzle; and (d) the ageing of the fuel blend by thermal oxidation stability
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