Use In Internal Combustion Engines Research Articles

Effect of Noise Pollution Among Milling Machine Operators in North-West Nigeria.

Commercial activities are mostly centralized to main markets in many towns and cities of the Northern part of Nigeria. Such central markets constitute the noisiest part of the towns. Yet, there is no evidence that the workers and traders in such markets are aware of the challenges excessive noise pollution pose to their health. This problem serves as the basis for this research, which investigated the major source of noise pollution in Kebbi central market and make recommendation to improve the wellbeing of the people in the market.The market was divided into thirteen sections based on activities. These sections were visited twice a day for two weeks to measure their sound levels. The sound level was measured with a CEM digital noise level meter with an accuracy of ±3.5dB@1KHz. Thereafter, an ergonomic observation assessment of the noisiest section was carried out. The assessment was carried out based on rapid entire body assessment (REBA) methodology. The average sound intensity in all the sections exceeded the recommended safe sound level of 40dB. However, only the sound intensity at the grain and spice milling section (89.13 dB) exceeded the noise harmfulness level of 85dB. Operators were encouraged to use ear muffs or earplugs to minimise the exposure to harmful noise level. Proper electrification of the section was also recommended to minimise the use of internal combustion engines. The findings emphasised the need for government and relevant authorities to carry out occupational safety awareness among workers in the non-formal sector of the society.

Review on synthesis gas production in a downdraft biomass gasifier for use in internal combustion engines in Nigeria

This paper presents a review on the possibility and potential of synthesis gas production and its utilization as an alternative fuel for internal combustion engines (ICE) in Nigeria. Information on numerous experimental studies and demonstrations on downdraft biomass gasification for synthesis gas production as well as the potential use of synthesis gas as fuel for ICE applications were assessed. The review reveals that there are abundant biomass resources in Nigeria and there is a great potential to produce synthesis gas from these sources using downdraft gasifier as preferable technology. Keywords: Biomass, Downdraft gasifier, internal combustion engines, Synthesis gas

The potential role of hydrogen as a sustainable transportation fuel to combat global warming

Hydrogen is recognized as a key source of the sustainable energy solutions. The transportation sector is known as one of the largest fuel consumers of the global energy market. Hydrogen can become a promising fuel for sustainable transportation by providing clean, reliable, safe, convenient, customer friendly, and affordable energy. In this study, the possibility of hydrogen as the major fuel for transportation systems is investigated comprehensively based on the recent data published in the literature. Due to its several characteristic advantages, such as energy density, abundance, ease of transportation, a wide variety of production methods from clean and renewable fuels with zero or minimal emissions; hydrogen appears to be a great chemical fuel which can potentially replace fossil fuel use in internal combustion engines. In order to take advantage of hydrogen as an internal combustion engine fuel, existing engines should be redesigned to avoid abnormal combustion. Hydrogen use in internal combustion engines could enhance system efficiencies, offer higher power outputs per vehicle, and emit lower amounts of greenhouse gases. Even though hydrogen-powered fuel cells have lower emissions than internal combustion engines, they require additional space and weight and they are generally more expensive. Therefore, the scope of this study is hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engines. It is also highlighted that in order to become a truly sustainable and clean fuel, hydrogen should be produced from renewable energy and material resources with zero or minimal emissions at high efficiencies. In addition, in this study, conventional, hybrid, electric, biofuel, fuel cell, and hydrogen fueled ICE vehicles are comparatively assessed based on their CO2 and SO2 emissions, social cost of carbon, energy and exergy efficiencies, fuel consumption, fuel price, and driving range. The results show that when all of these criteria are taken into account, fuel cell vehicles have the highest average performance ranking (4.97/10), followed by hydrogen fueled ICEs (4.81/10) and biofuel vehicles (4.71/10). On the other hand, conventional vehicles have the lowest average performance ranking (1.21/10), followed by electric vehicles (4.24/10) and hybrid vehicles (4.53/10).

Hydrodeoxygenation of Sorbitol into Bio‐Alkanes and ‐Alcohols Over Phosphated Ruthenium Molybdenum Catalysts

AbstractBiofuels such as renewable alkanes and higher alcohols have drawn considerable interests for the use in internal combustion engines. Especially, higher alcohols could be used as a blending agent for diesel fuels. Herein, carbon supported phosphated ruthenium‐molybdenum (RuMoP) catalysts were employed in continuous trickle‐bed reactor for converting sorbitol into renewable alkanes and higher alcohols. The results showed that RuMoP on an active carbon (AC) support presented a complete sorbitol conversion and high yields of alkanes and alcohols in gasoline and diesel range. Subsequently, carbon nanotube (CNT) supported RuMoP was prepared and studied in detail for comparison. RuMoP/CNT presented a low C−C bond cracking property in sorbitol conversion and high selectivity of C6 products in gas‐phase (C6 alkane, 74.7 %) and oil‐phase (C6 alkane and alcohols, 87.8 %). Finally, detailed characterizations (N2‐adsorption, XRD, HRTEM, XPS, NH3‐TPD, Py‐IR spectrums, etc.) were performed over relevant catalysts (RuMoP/C and RuMoP/CNT) for correlating their catalytic and physicochemical properties.

Comparison of light-duty transportation fuels produced from renewable hydrogen and green carbon dioxide

Hydrogen (H2) production through water electrolysis is widely discussed as a means of storing renewable electricity in chemical bonds. Hydrogen can be used for transportation in fuel cell vehicles, but it can also be reacted with carbon dioxide (CO2) to form other fuels. While many concepts have been proposed, detailed comparisons of different pathways are still scarce. Herein, we present a technical, environmental, and economic comparison of direct H2 use in fuel cells, and production of methane, methanol, and dimethyl ether (DME) for use in internal combustion engines for light-duty vehicle applications. The scenario considered uses renewable electricity for water electrolysis, and CO2 which is supplied continuously from biogas upgrading. All four fuels enable significant reductions (79–93%) in well-to-wheel greenhouse gas emissions as well as pollutant formation compared to fossil fuels, but they require very cheap H2 to be competitive to fossil fuels, confirming intuitive expectations. While direct use of H2 has obvious advantages (no conversion losses, high efficiency of fuel cells compared to internal combustion engines) in terms of overall electricity consumption, emissions, and fuel cost, its drawbacks compared to the other fuels are the need for an H2 infrastructure, the high fueling pressure, and lower driving range. Among the three combustion engine fuels, DME has the lowest fuel cost and electricity consumption per distance driven because of the more efficient use of H2 in its production, as well as the highest volumetric energy density, while methane has slightly lower greenhouse gas emissions. Cost and energy demand are dominated by H2 supply, meaning that integrated solutions could be more attractive than separate electrolysis and fuel production.

Economic, exergy, and the environmental analysis of the use of internal combustion engines in parallel-to-network mode for office buildings

In recent times, the tendency toward the use of combined heat and power cogeneration systems to supply the electrical and heat requirements has provided the heat for the buildings in addition to the cost reduction of the power distribution networks. In this study, the Carrier Software per 15th of each month did the hourly analysis of heating, cooling, and electrical loads for a 5-floor office building with a net area of 1000 m2 (200 m2 per each floor) in Tehran City (in Iran) and besides the average loads in that month were assumed. The mechanical air-conditioning system with absorption chiller is used to supply the heating load in the second half of the year (the autumn and winter), the heat pump system and the cooling load in the first half of the year (spring and summer). Due to the average thermal, cryogenic, and electrical loads, the number of motors required for the parallel mode of the power distribution system was 4 and for the network-independent mode was 7. The results show that the annual productions of $$m_{{{\text{Co}}_{2} }} ,m_{\text{Co}} ,\;{\text{and}}\;m_{\text{No}}$$ are 648,640, 21,395, and 68,172 kg/year, respectively. The entropy production in cogeneration mode was 801,861.120 kJ/kg year. Besides, the prices of electricity in parallel-to-network and network-independent modes were calculated as 0.96 and 0.4866 US$/kWh, respectively.

Feasibility economic analysis for electricity generation in internal combustion engine sets using landfill gas in Lagos State

The main objective of this paper is to analyze the economic feasibility landfill gas for electricity generation in Lagos State. In this paper, methane emissions are estimated by applying the First Order Decay model to landfills in Lagos over the latest data available by Lagos Bureau of Statistics. Documented waste-in-place in Lagos State from 1990 to 2014 can be approximated to 51 million tons of waste disposed. An engineering economic analysis was used which was adapted from US EPA’s Landfill methodology. Based on the US EPA’s Landfill methodology, we calculated that a total of landfill gas of 4,736.37 mmcf/yr can be generated. Therefore, considering the use of internal combustion engines, a total of 202,720,789 kWh of electricity can be generated annually. The NPV results were mostly negative and positive at N18.75 and N36.49 unit prices respectively. Further analyses revealed that the breakeven price was N29.17 per unit of electricity at 10% discount rate and a life span of 15 years. It becomes imperative that electricity from this source requires government subsidy as other economic benefits abound.

Characterization of combustion anomalies in a hydrogen-fueled 1.4 L commercial spark-ignition engine by means of in-cylinder pressure, block-engine vibration, and acoustic measurements

Abnormal combustion phenomena are among the main hurdles for the introduction of hydrogen in the transportation sector through the use of internal combustion engines (ICEs). For that reason the challenge is to guarantee operation free from combustion anomalies at conditions close to the ones giving the best engine output (maximum brake torque and power). To this end, an early and accurate detection of abnormal combustion events is decisive in order to allow the electronic control unit deciding suitable correcting actions. In this work, an automotive size 4-cylinder 1.4 L naturally aspirated port-fuel injection spark ignition Volkswagen engine adapted to run on hydrogen has been investigated. Three distinct methods (in-cylinder pressure, block-engine vibration and acoustic measurements) have been employed to detect abnormal combustion phenomena provoked through the enrichment of the hydrogen-air mixture fed to the cylinders under a wide range of engine speeds (1000–5000 rpm). It has been found that the high-frequency components of the in-cylinder pressure and block engine acceleration signals obtained after a Fourier transform analysis can be used for very sensitive detection of knocking combustion cycles. In the case of the ambient noise measurements, a spectral analysis in terms of third octave bands of the signal recorded by a microphone allowed an accurate characterization. Combustion anomalies could be detected through more intense octave bands at frequencies between 250 Hz and 4 kHz in the case of backfire and between 8 kHz and 20 kHz for knock. Computational fluid dynamics simulations performed indicated that some characteristics of the engine used such as the cylinder valves dimensions and the hydrogen flow rate delivered by the injectors play important roles conditioning the likelihood of suffering backfire events.

Life Cycle Performance of Hydrogen Production via Agro-Industrial Residue Gasification—A Small Scale Power Plant Study

This study evaluates the environmental profile of a real biomass-based hydrogen production small-scale (1 MWth) system composed of catalytic candle indirectly heated steam gasifier coupled with zinc oxide (ZnO) guard bed, water gas shift (WGS) and pressure swing absorber (PSA) reactors. Environmental performance from cradle-to-gate was investigated by life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. Biomass production shows high influence over all impact categories. In the syngas production process, the main impacts observed are global warming potential (GWP) and acidification potential (AP). Flue gas emission from gasifier burner has the largest proportion of total GWP. The residual off gas use in internal combustion engine (ICE) leads to important environmental savings for all categories. Hydrogen renewability score is computed as 90% due to over 100% decline in non-renewable energy demand. Sensitivity analysis shows that increase in hydrogen production efficiency does not necessarily result in decrease in environmental impacts. In addition, economic allocation of environmental charges increases all impact categories, especially AP and photochemical oxidation (POFP).

Extraction and Determination of Physico-chemical Properties of Oil from Watermelon Seeds (Citrullus lanatus L) to Use in Internal Combustion Engines

The purpose of this work was to investigate the physicochemical properties of watermelon seeds and oil and to find out if this oil is suitable and compatible with diesel engines. The results showed that the watermelon seeds had the maximum length (9.08 mm), width (5.71mm), thickness (2.0 mm), arithmetic mean diameter (5.59 mm), geometrical mean diameter (4.69 mm), sphericity (51.6%), surface area (69.07), volume 0.17 cm3 and moisture content 5.4%. The oil was liquid at room temperature, with a density and refractive index of 0.945 and 1.4731 respectively acidity value (1.9 mgNaOH/g), free fatty acid (0.95 mgNaOH), iodine value (120 mgI2/100g), saponification value (180 mgKOH/g), antiradical activity (46%), peroxide value (7.5 mEqO2/Kg), induction period (6.2 h), fatty acid: palmitic acid (13.1%), stearic acid (9.5 %), oleic acid (15.2 %) and linoleic acid (61.3%). Straight non food vegetable oils can offer a solution to fossil fuels by a cleaner burning with minimal adaptation of the engine. A single cylinder air cooled diesel engine Ruggerini RY 50 was used to measure emissions of various blends of watermelon oil (WO) and diesel fuel (WO10D90, WO20D80, WO30D70 and WO75D25). The physic-chemical properties of the oil influence the combustion process and emissions leading to the reduction of NOX and the increase in CO, CO2 and HC.

Analysis of the possibilities of using of DME fuel in motor boat drive systems

The characteristics of alternative fuel for diesel: dimethyl ether (DME) and an analysis of the potential to reduce emissions of toxic compounds by the engines when running on this fuel have been presented in this work. Basic types of design solutions of gas supply and control systems, possible for use in internal combustion engines with DME supply have been also presented. The paper presents a study of the legislation and an analysis of the feasibility of the system storage and fueling DME on board small vessels.

Evaluation of performance and emissions characteristics of methanol blend (gasohol) in a naturally aspirated spark ignition engine

Alternative fuels for use in internal combustion engines have become recently in attention due the strict regulations regarding the environmental protection, emissions and to reduce the dependency of the fossil fuels. One choice is the use of methanol as it can be produce from renewable sources and blended with gasoline in any proportion. The aim of this study is to compare the effects of methanol – gasoline blends regarding performance, combustion and emission characteristics with gasoline. Five different blends M5, M10, M15, M20 and M25 were tested in a single cylinder spark ignition engine typically used in scooters applications. The experimental results in engine performance show a decrease of torque and power up to 10 %and in emissions characteristics a CO, CO2, HC. It can be concluded that gasohol is viable option to be used in gasoline engines to replace partially the fossil fuel.

Impact of Contaminants in Motor Oil on the Wear of Aluminum Parts of the Internal Combustion Engine

The design of internal combustion engine use plain bearings, pistons and piston-rod which are based on aluminium, brass. Further are used steels with coating based on aluminium and bronze. The paper describes the impact of contaminants in motor oil on wear of materials, which are used in production of parts of internal combustion engine. Reichert tester M2 for evaluation the lubricity from Petrotest Company was used in order to assess ability of motor oils to create proper lubricating film. Reichert tester M2 belongs to a group of equipment simulating real frictional contact. Wear particles come into oil in lubrication system, where they cause contamination and degradation of lubricating properties and consequently it may result in major failure of machines. Among these contaminants are included mainly water, fuel, water coolant, adhesive, abrasive and fatigue particles wear. The aim of research was focused only on oil contaminated with fuel including petrol, diesel and biobutanol.

Calculation of Exhaust Gas Heat Produce for Ron 95, Ron97 and Vpower Racing Base Fuels use in Internal Combustion Engines

The purpose of this study is to identify and analyse the calculation of exhaust gas heat produce (EGHP) in internal combustion engine (ICE) based on three types of fuel used specifically Petrol Ron 95, Petrol Ron 97 and Vpower racing base. The experimental test rig has used 1.6 CamPro Proton engine with 1561cc capacity and dynamometer. The calculation has used the basic formula of heat transfer equation and heat loss through the exhaust that included the mass flow rate of exhaust gas, specific heat of exhaust gas and temperature gradient. The exhaust temperature of ICE is generally in range from 400ï‚°C to 600ï‚°C and exhaust gas heat transfer affects the emissions burn-up in the exhaust system. This contributes significantly to the engine requirement. The experimental data was statistically analysed to identify the unknown parameter. High correlation of data variables can be determined based on the heat loss produced or EGHP. This also has significance by using different types of fuel in ICE.

Experimental investigation of switchable behavior of CuO-MWCNT (85%–15%)/10W-40 hybrid nano-lubricants for applications in internal combustion engines

In this study, we examined the rheological behavior of hybrid nano-lubricant CuO-MWCNT (85%–15%)/10W-40 at the temperature range of 5 to 55°C and the solid volume fraction of 0.05 to 1% to use in internal combustion engines. According to experimental data, by increasing the solid volume fraction, the amount of nano-lubricant viscosity increases compared with pure lubricant, so that the maximum amount of dynamic viscosity enhancement in solid volume fraction of 1% is about 43.52%. Nano-lubricant behavior is diagnosed by using the Herschel-Bulkley (type Bingham) model, so that in temperatures <45°C, nano-lubricant shows non-Newtonian behavior of Bingham pseudoplastic, and it shows Bingham plastic non-Newtonian behavior at temperatures above 45°C. Finally, to predict the dynamic viscosity of nano-lubricant, a mathematical correlation with second order precision of 0.9846 was presented, which it had acceptable match with experimental data.

Analysis of application of alternative drive systems for international heavy-duty transport on Wroclaw-Dresden-Prague routes

The depletion of the fossil fuels resources, significant increase of the air pollution caused by the use of internal combustion engines, and emission of carbon dioxide which is responsible for the greenhouse effect escalates the development of vehicle’s alternative drive systems. Generally, the emphasis is given to the alternative fuels (natural gas CNG, mixture of propane-butane gases LPG, hydrogen, alcohol fuels, biofuels) and hybrid or electric vehicles. Roads between large industrial and commercial centres, i.e. Wroclaw – Dresden – Prague, are used mainly by heavy-duty vehicles. Consequently, the contribution of the road transport to the ecological threat in this realm is significant. The objectives of this research were the assessment of the traffic volume and emission rate of exhaust gases caused by heavy-duty vehicles on the analysed roads and evaluation of the possibility of using existing and alternative drive systems in vehicles driving on the roads in the analysed region.

An Approach to the Prototyping of an Optimized Limited Stroke Actuator to Drive a Low Pressure Exhaust Gas Recirculation Valve.

The purpose of this article is to describe the design of a limited stroke actuator and the corresponding prototype to drive a Low Pressure (LP) Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) valve for use in Internal Combustion Engines (ICEs). The direct drive actuator topology is an axial flux machine with two air gaps in order to minimize the rotor inertia and a bipolar surface-mounted permanent magnet in order to respect an 80° angular stroke. Firstly, the actuator will be described and optimized under constraints of a 150 ms time response, a 0.363 N·m minimal torque on an angular range from 0° to 80° and prototyping constraints. Secondly, the finite element method (FEM) using the FLUX-3D® software (CEDRAT, Meylan, France) will be used to check the actuator performances with consideration of the nonlinear effect of the iron material. Thirdly, a prototype will be made and characterized to compare its measurement results with the analytical model and the FEM model results. With these electromechanical behavior measurements, a numerical model is created with Simulink® in order to simulate an EGR system with this direct drive actuator under all operating conditions. Last but not least, the energy consumption of this machine will be estimated to evaluate the efficiency of the proposed EGR electromechanical system.

The improvement of friction bearing manufacturing technology by using copper alloy

The research objective is to increase the operational life of friction bearings by technological methods, particularly, in relation to kinematic mechanisms used for conversion of motion in the tractor-type internal combustion engines. The research object is the process of friction and wear in friction bearings. Theoretical regularities related to change in friction and wear parameters in the bearings were used, depending on the used materials and load conditions. The studies were conducted by the selection of variants of friction pairs for friction bearings used in kinematic mechanisms of internal combustion engines operating at high radial loads and under rapidly changing load modes. In the course of this study, the authors selected the best design and technological characteristics for bearings with certain pairs of friction and studied the friction and wear regularities of the selected pairs of friction bearings. The study also implied the analysis of the initial data for the evaluation of wear resistance of the selected pairs of friction bearings and the development of technical specifications for their use in internal combustion engines. The use of copper for manufacturing the bearing shell was determined as one of the promising ways to increasing their quality indicators. Highly effective properties of copper for manufacturing the supporting elements of plain bearings were experimentally confirmed. The operational life of bearings can reach 14,000 motor-hours, which exceeds the operational life of a standard serial bearing shell by more than eight times. The economic result of applying the copper inserts implies the fact that given an increase in engine cost approximately by 2 %, repair costs per 1 h of the engine run are reduced by more than eight times. Design features of the proposed shells differ from the standard ones only by material; their dimensions and configuration are completely analogous to the standard inserts that allow using the new type of inserts for all currently used engine models. The most significant theoretical result of this study is the obtained functional connection of the friction and wear performance, expressed as a thermal stability coefficient, which gives the possibility to justify the choice of materials for the kinematic mechanisms of motion conversion in the tractor-type internal combustion engines based on studying thermal properties, characteristics of the materials employed, and the expected operating conditions. Industrial implementation of research results will give the economic effect—application of the developed bearings results in repair cost reduction by more than eight times.

Recent Advances in Biobutanol Production

Abstract Butanol has been used as an important solvent in various industries, and is considered a good liquid fuel substitute for gasoline for use in internal combustion engines. Biobased production of butanol has a long history and was one of the first industrial-scale fermentation processes in which Clostridium strains were employed. Recent work on metabolic engineering of Clostridium strains has resulted in considerably improved production of butanol. In addition, several non-clostridial microorganisms have also been developed for butanol production. Here we review the advances in butanol production that have employed Clostridium strains and other microorganisms.

A Comparison of the Microbial Production and Combustion Characteristics of Three Alcohol Biofuels: Ethanol, 1-Butanol, and 1-Octanol.

Over the last decade, microbes have been engineered for the manufacture of a variety of biofuels. Saturated linear-chain alcohols have great potential as transport biofuels. Their hydrocarbon backbones, as well as oxygenated content, confer combustive properties that make it suitable for use in internal combustion engines. Herein, we compared the microbial production and combustion characteristics of ethanol, 1-butanol, and 1-octanol. In terms of productivity and efficiency, current microbial platforms favor the production of ethanol. From a combustion standpoint, the most suitable fuel for spark-ignition engines would be ethanol, while for compression-ignition engines it would be 1-octanol. However, any general conclusions drawn at this stage regarding the most superior biofuel would be premature, as there are still many areas that need to be addressed, such as large-scale purification and pipeline compatibility. So far, the difficulties in developing and optimizing microbial platforms for fuel production, particularly for newer fuel candidates, stem from our poor understanding of the myriad biological factors underpinning them. A great deal of attention therefore needs to be given to the fundamental mechanisms that govern biological processes. Additionally, research needs to be undertaken across a wide range of disciplines to overcome issues of sustainability and commercial viability.