Performance, emission and combustion characteristics of a biogas–diesel dual fuel engine using Taguchi method

Abstract

Due to the modern adaptations of engines and emission protocols, diesel engines have become more of an ancient technology owing to their emissions majorly, which contribute significantly to the environmental pollution. It would be impossible to eradicate all the diesel engines today, as most of the heavy commercial vehicles are still reliant on them and majority of the people, today, own diesel engine powered vehicles. Rather, a feasible solution is to use biogas-diesel mixture so as to ensure a practical approach to this problem. Biogas reduces significant emissions relevant to other alternative fuels. In this paper, the performance, emission and combustion effects of biogas flow rate, torque and intake temperature, on engine performance have been looked into on a Compression Ignition (CI) engine, with biogas as primary fuel and diesel as pilot fuel, operating in a dual-fuel mode, under constant speed operation. Taguchi method is employed to decrease the number of trials to 9 and Signal to Noise ratio is used to analyze the optimum performance indices. Analysis of Variance is used to understand which of three parameters has the most effect on the engine performance.