PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF CI ENGINE FUELLED WITH WATER EMULSIFIED DIESEL OIL

Sangeeta Das

Abstract: It is well known that diesel engines are the most efficient internal combustion (IC) engines used in transportation sector due to its higher thermal efficiency, simple and rigid structure. However, they produce hazardous emissions such as oxides of nitrogen (NOX), particulate matter, smoke and obnoxious odour in high amount. In this work, attention is focused to retain the performance and to reduce the emissions from diesel engines by using one of the fuel modification techniques, water-diesel emulsion, in a stationary diesel engine without any engine modification. Stable diesel emulsion samples with 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% water content are prepared with the help of proper mixing technique and emulsifying agent which are then used in a fully instrumented single cylinder, four stoke, water cooled, VCR, DI ‘Kirloskar’ make diesel engine at varying loads and constant speed. Various fuel characteristics like density, viscosity, calorific value, flash point, cloud and pour point, etc., are evaluated for the samples. It has been found that the performance of the engine is slightly improved in terms of brake thermal efficiency when 20% waterdiesel emulsion is used because of its minimum brake specific energy consumption and predominant effect of micro-explosion phenomena during combustion. The average increase in brake thermal efficiency (BTE) is approximately 2.5% compared to pure diesel over the entire load range for this engine. Also the exhaust gas temperature and NOX emission for 20% blend is lower than diesel fuel by 8.6% and 30%, respectively. However, carbon monoxide (CO) and unburnt hydrocarbon (UBHC) emissions with 20% water-diesel emulsion are marginally higher than those with pure diesel. Thus, considering the engine performance, emission characteristics and local environmental conditions, 20% water-diesel emulsion is the most suitable water-diesel emulsion blend.

Keywords: Water-Diesel Emulsion, Micro-Explosion, Water-In-Oil, Oil-In-Water, Emissions, BTE, NOX, CO, UBHC

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2016.0511043