Abstract
Diesel engines have proven over the years important in terms of efficiency and fuel consumption to power generation ratio. Many research works show the potential of biodiesel as a substitute for conventional gasoil. Mainly, previous and recent researches have focused on experimental investigation of diesel engine performance fuelled by biodiesel. Researches on the mathematical description of diesel engine process running on biodiesel are scarce, and mostly about chemical and thermodynamic description of the combustion process of biodiesel rather than performance studies. This work describes a numerical investigation on the performance analysis of a diesel engine fuelled by palm oil biodiesel. The numerical investigation was made using a semi empirical 0D model based on Wiebe’s and Watson’s model which was implemented via the open access numerical calculation software Scilab. The model was validated first by comparing with experimental pressure and performance data of a one cylinder engine at rated speed and secondly by comparing with a six cylinders engine performance data at various crankshaft rotational speeds. Simulations were then made to analyze the engine performance when running on biodiesel. The calculations were made at constant combustion duration and constant coefficient of excess air. Results showed that the model matches the overall experimental data, such as the power output and peak cylinder pressure. The ignition delay was somehow underestimated by the model for the first experiment, which caused a slight gap on in cylinder pressure curve, whereas it predicted the average ignition delay fairly well for the second set of validation. The simulations of engine performance when running on biodiesel confirmed results obtained in previous experimental researches on biodiesel. The model will be further investigated for engine control when shifting to biodiesel fuel.
Highlights
Reaching lower toxicity of exhaust gases, whilst reducing fuel consumption is one of the modern trends in automobile engineering research
Further description of the model can be found in [9], here we presented the main equations for combustion that will have a greater impact on the engine performance calculation
A semi empirical 0D model was elaborated to predict diesel engine performance when running on biodiesel
Summary
Reaching lower toxicity of exhaust gases, whilst reducing fuel consumption is one of the modern trends in automobile engineering research. The characteristics of fuel play an important role in the performances of the engine. Gasoil has been for years the main fuel for diesel engine but, due to the reducing availability of fossil energy resources and the stricter rules on engine emission [1], and researchers have been investigating the use of alternative fuels. Simulation and mathematical modeling of diesel engine are scientific topics carried out by several research works. There mainly exist three types of approaches for diesel engine simulation: 0 dimensional thermodynamic, quasi dimensional and multi dimensional (Computational Fluid Dynamic). A well documented discussion on these models can be found in [4]
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