Selection of Optimum Fuel Blend Using AHP and EDAS Analysis

Abstract

Due to the ever-increasing population, the demand for the available natural resources leads to the depletion of existing resources. On the other hand, due to the automobile Emissions global warming has been increasing day today. A need has been aroused to search alternatives for the existing fuels. These drawbacks are motivating researchers for developing existing technologies as a step towards the betterment of the environment. Many fuels have been used as an alternative for Petrol/Diesel out of which biodiesel is one of the emerging alternatives due to its low emission characteristics. Looking upon the performance characteristics the practical Applications of Biodiesel are lesser as compared to diesel. Hence it is advisable to use the fuel with some blended proportion of Diesel. In such cases, MCDM (Multi-Criteria Decision making) methods are used to select optimum blend. The present paper highlights the experimental results obtained after blending Chlorella Vulgaris as a biofuel with diesel in 8 different blends and presents the analytical methods Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Evaluation based on distance from average solution (EDAS) for selecting the optimum blend of fuel. AHP was used for the analysis of criteria weights for each of the factors and EDAS was used for ranking the optimistic fuel blend. Total eight factors Performance (BTE and BSFC), emission (CO, HC, and NOx) and combustion(Peak Pressure, Net Heat Release, and Ignition Delay) were the basic factors considered as the criteria for selection. Whereas blend of Biodiesel blended with 20% Diesel with ZnO as an additive was found to be optimum out of eight blends.