Investigation and Implementation of Compressed Air Powered Motorbike Engine

Abstract

Fossil fuels amount became very limited due to their terrific use. Also, the fossil fuels dependence has brought many environmental complications. Vehicles using compressed air as a fuel are considered like a dream and have involved many considerations. The compressed air engine (CAE) is receiving worldwide attention because it takes advantages of renewable energy and has zero exhaust emissions. The motorbike engine has emission percentage greater than any fuel operated engines. Currently in Egypt, there are more than 3 million motorcycles (motorbikes and covered three wheeled motorbikes called tuktuk) driven by fossil fuel. This paper provides an overview of air power engine for motorcycle, called air bikes. The objective is to modify the four stroke petrol engine into two stroke compressed air engine by replacing the spark plug by solenoid valve and using the Infra-Red (IR) modules for the piston timing. Due to availability, the used air compressor is piston type with maximum 8bar and 100 L capacity. Prototype of air powered motorbike engine is implemented by modification of 150 cm3 Dayun commercial petrol engine. The modified compressed air engine speed is 300 rpm at 8bar air pressure with 7.8 Nm torque and 245 watt power. The efficiency of the compressed air engine reached 9.6%. Yet, due to utilization of low compressed air pressure, the performance of the investigated CAE is so poor that it clearly has minor impact in motive power and hinders its commercialization.