Energy: S. Jaichandar, K. Annamalai
Energy: S. Jaichandar, K. Annamalai
Energy: S. Jaichandar, K. Annamalai
Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: Improved thermal efficiency, reduction in fuel consumption and pollutant emissions from biodiesel
Received 14 September 2012 fueled diesel engines are important issues in engine research. To achieve these, rapid and perfect air-fuel
Received in revised form mixing are the most important requirements. The mixing quality of biodiesel spray with air can be
17 February 2013
improved by selecting the best injection parameters and better design of the combustion chamber.
Accepted 13 April 2013
Available online 15 May 2013
Experiments were performed using a DI (direct injection) diesel engine equipped with a conventional
jerk type injection system and pistons having HCC (hemispherical combustion chamber) and TRCC
(toroidal re-entrant combustion chamber) geometries. The combined effect of varying, injection pressure
Keywords:
Biodiesel
and combustion chamber geometries, on the combustion, performance and exhaust emissions, using a
Diesel engine blend of 20% POME (pongamia oil methyl ester) by volume in diesel were evaluated. The test results
Combustion chamber showed that improvement in terms of brake thermal efficiency and specific fuel consumption for TRCC
Injection pressure operated at higher injection pressure. Substantial improvements in reduction of emissions levels were
Performance also observed for TRCC operated at higher injection pressure. However improved combustion, due to
Emissions better air motion inside the cylinder and high pressure injection, increased the oxides of nitrogen (NOx).
Increasing injection pressure decreased ignition delay, and increased peak in-cylinder pressure and
maximum heat release rate.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction biodiesel fuel in diesel engines without any modification to the diesel
engine. These investigations have reported that the use of biodiesel
Internal combustion engines, particularly diesel engines play an blends and neat biodiesel in the diesel engine, decreased exhaust
important role in automotive, industrial and agricultural sectors. emissions levels, except oxides of nitrogen (NOx) compared to Ultra
Although, more fuel efficient, reliable and durable than their spark Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD) [4e7]. Further, increased brake specific fuel
ignited counterpart, they have relatively higher emissions and consumption [8,9] and decreased brake thermal efficiency, and brake
noise level. The increasing requirement of energy in the form of fuel mean effective pressure have been reported [10e12].
and growing concern over environmental pollution caused by the The performance and emission characteristics of CI (compres-
extensive use of conventional fossil fuels have led to the search for sion ignition) engines mainly depend upon the combustion process
alternative, but more environment friendly and renewable fuels. [13]. Combustion of the fuel inside the cylinder, in turn depends on
Among various options available as an alternative for diesel fuel, various factors like, fuel injection timing, fuel injection pressure,
biodiesel has been reported to be one of the strong contenders for engine design such as shape of combustion chamber and position
reductions in environmental pollution [1e3]. Therefore, it is of in- of injector, fuel properties, number and size of injection nozzle
terest to investigate the use of biodiesel in the diesel engine, aiming hole, fuel spray pattern, air swirl, fuel quantity injected, etc. [14].
to increase efficiency of operations and to reduce the emissions of When compared with ULSD, biodiesel has different physical and
pollutants. A number of experimental investigations were carried out chemical properties, which affect the nature of the combustion
on the performance, emission and combustion characteristics of process [15e17]. High viscosity and surface tension of vegetable oil
affect atomization by increasing the droplet size which in turn in-
creases the spray tip penetration [18,19]. Injection pressure of the
* Corresponding author.
injected fuel has a significance effect on the performance and for-
E-mail addresses: jaisriram18@yahoo.com, jcdhanesh@gmail.com mation of pollutants inside the DI (direct injection) diesel engine
(S. Jaichandar). combustion chamber [20,21]. Combustion of fuel in diesel engines
0360-5442/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2013.04.019
S. Jaichandar, K. Annamalai / Energy 55 (2013) 330e339 331
evaporation rates [22,23]. The reduction in the average droplet Make Kirloskar TV1
diameter increases the heat release rates, facilitates ignition, pro- Type Vertical diesel engine, 4 stroke, water cooled,
vides excellent vaporization and thereby improves combustion single cylinder
efficiency and reduces the pollutant emissions. Higher injection Displacement 661 cc
pressure generally contributes to decreased fuel droplet size, Bore & stroke 87.5 mm & 110 mm
Compression ratio 17.5:1
improved combustion and results in reduction of smoke emissions
Fuel Diesel
[24e27]. Rated brake power 5.2 kW @ 1500 rpm
Once the operating injection parameters are optimally matched Ignition system Compression ignition
to each other with combustion chamber geometry generated tur- Injection timing 23 bTDC (rated)
Injection pressure 200 bar
bulence, they typically result in a fuel spray with small droplet size
Combustion chamber Hemispherical combustion chamber
(good atomization), long tip penetration, narrow spray angle, better
air-biodiesel mixing and the vaporization process. These injection
and air-fuel mixing characteristics play an important role in
improving combustion phenomenon of biodiesel in a DI diesel point, cloud point and pour point were comparable with those of
engine which in turn improve engine performance and harmful ULSD. Even though properties of POME were comparable with
emissions. Hence, an experimental investigation was carried out, to ULSD the viscosity of POME20 was found to be about 14.5% higher
study the combined effect of varying injection pressure and com- and calorific value was 2.3% lower, when compared to ULSD.
bustion chamber geometry on the performance of a biodiesel
fueled diesel engine.
2.2. Experimental setup
2. Materials and methods The test engine used was the Kirloskar, single cylinder, four-
stroke, water cooled, diesel engine developing 5.2 kW at
2.1. Biodiesel production and properties 1500 rpm. The detailed technical specifications of the standard
engine are given in Table 2. Fig. 1 shows the schematic diagram of
In this study, biodiesel was produced from Pongamia seeds the experimental setup. The engine used was a constant speed
obtained from the tree Pongamia Pinnata. Pongamia is a medium engine operated at a speed of 1500 rpm. The standard engine had a
sized glabrous tree grown in many parts of Asia and Australia. hemispherical combustion chamber. It had overhead valves, oper-
Pongamia is popularly known as Karanja in India. Pongamia be- ated by push rods. The standard engine was equipped with a con-
longs to the family Leguminaceae. Among the oilseed plants, Pon- ventional jerk type MICO in-line injection pump, which pressurizes
gamia is the promising one for sustained availability of feedstock the fuel and injects at a pressure of 200 bar. A three-hole injector
for the production of biodiesel. POME (pongamia oil methyl ester) was used, which injects the fuel in the form of fine spray to ensure
was prepared by the transesterification process from raw Pongamia good fuel atomization. The fuel was injected into the centrally
oil. Transesterification is a chemical process of transforming large, positioned combustion chamber made in the piston crown. This
branched, triglyceride molecules of vegetable oils into smaller, engine was coupled to an eddy current dynamometer with a con-
straight chain molecules, almost similar to ULSD. The process takes trol system.
place by the reaction of raw pongamia oil with methyl alcohol in The cylinder pressure was measured by a piezoelectric pressure
the presence of alkaline catalyst. The properties of the raw pon- transducer fitted on the engine cylinder head and a crank angle
gamia oil and POME were experimentally evaluated. The properties encoder fitted on the flywheel. Both the pressure transducer and
of raw pongamia oil, POME and its 20% by volume blend with diesel encoder signal were connected to the charge amplifier to condition
(POME20) are compared with the ULSD in Table 1. Most of the the signals for combustion analysis using SeS combustion analyzer.
properties of biodiesel like calorific value, viscosity, density, flash The engine combustion analyzer, was used to evaluate and
Table 1
Properties of diesel, raw pongamia oil, biodiesel from pongamia and its blend.
Properties Pongamia oil POME POME20 ULSD IS 15607:2005 Test methods IS1448/ASTM
determine combustion characteristics such as ignition delay, start Combustion Chamber (TRCC) from the standard Hemispherical
of combustion, estimated end of combustion, mass fraction burnt, open type Combustion Chamber (HCC). For both the combustion
heat release rate and pressure variations with respect to crank chamber configurations, bowl volume was kept constant so that
angle and volume. UBHC (unburnt hydrocarbon) and CO were compression ratio was the same for the investigated engine. The
measured using a CRYPTON 5 gas analyzer. The instrument mea- photographic and sectional view of pistons having the Hemi-
sures CO, CO2 and UBHC based on Non-Dispersive lnfra-Red (NDIR) spherical and Toroidal Re-entrant shapes of combustion chambers
principle. NOx emissions were measured using a chemiluminescent employed for this study is shown in Fig. 2.
type SIGNAL heated vacuum NOx analyzer. The smoke intensity was The shape of the combustion chamber and the fluid dynamics
measured with the help of the AVL 437C smoke meter. It works on inside the chamber are important in diesel combustion. As the
the principle of extinction of light between light source and piston moves upward, the gas is pushed into the piston bowl. The
receiver. geometry of the piston bowl can be designed to produce a squish
and swirling action which can improve the fuel/air mixture for-
2.3. Engine modifications mation before ignition takes place. The main goals desired from the
design of chamber geometry are to optimize the mixing of the fuel
In the present investigation, to investigate the effects of com- and air, before and during ignition, and to improve the flow of the
bustion chamber geometry on performance, combustion and exhaust products once combustion is complete. T. Saito et al. [28]
emission characteristics of biodiesel fueled DI diesel engine the compared conventional combustion chambers and re-entrant
piston bowl geometry was modified to have Toroidal Re-entrant combustion chambers in terms of the combustion process, engine
performance, and NOx and smoke emissions for ULSD operated DI Table 3
diesel engine. It was reported that re-entrant combustion chamber, Uncertainties in the measured parameters.
enhanced combustion because of the higher in-cylinder velocity Parameters Percent uncertainty
accompanied by increased turbulence. Montajir R et al. [29] studied Speed 1.0%
the effect of combustion chamber geometry on fuel spray behavior Load 0.5%
in a small DI diesel engine. It was found that a re-entrant type Time 0.3%
combustion chamber with round lip and round bottom corners Temperature 0.3%
Brake power 0.4%
provided better air and fuel distribution than a simple cylindrical
BSFC 0.8%
combustion chamber. The injector opening pressure was varied by BTE 0.5%
adjusting the spring tension of the injector by screwing or CO 0.3%
unscrewing the screw provided on the top of the injector. Then the UBHC 0.3%
NOx 0.2%
experiments were carried out at different injection opening pres-
Smoke opacity 0.8%
sures of 185, 200, 210, 220, and 230 bar. Pressure 1.0%
Fig. 7 that the maximum heat release rate of POME20 blend was
lower than that of ULSD in the standard engine. This may be
attributed to shorter ignition delay for POME20 compared with that
of ULSD. In addition, the poor spray atomization characteristics of
biodiesel due to higher viscosity and surface tension may be
responsible for the lower heat release rate. Further it was noticed
that heat release rate during diffusion combustion phase of
POME20 was slightly higher than that of ULSD. However, the heat
release rate curve for re-entrant combustion chambers fueled with
POME20 demonstrated similar but slightly better than the standard
engine fueled with ULSD, and POME20. This may be attributed to
improved air fuel mixing, evaporation and better combustion. In
addition, with the increase in injection pressure maximum heat
release rate further increased due to improved premixed combus-
tion phase. This may be attributed to better atomization and
Fig. 7. Comparisons of heat release rate at full load.
improved air fuel mixing.
Table 4
Comparison of brake specific fuel consumption.
3.2. Performance analysis Fig. 9 shows the comparison of Brake Thermal Efficiency (BTE) of
standard engine and modified engine with ULSD and POME20 at
The Brake Specific Fuel Consumption (BSFC) variations for different injection pressures. It shows that the BTE increased with
standard engine and modified engine with ULSD and POME20 at the increase in brake power for all fuel and all types of combustion
different injection pressures are shown in Fig. 8. Table 4 presents chambers. BTE of POME20 was lower (28.93%) compared to that of
the comparison of BSFC for standard engine and modified engine ULSD (31.7%) with the standard engine having HCC. On the other
with ULSD and POME20 at different injection pressures and loads. hand, BTE for TRCC (33.07% at full load) was higher when compared
The specific fuel consumption for TRCC (0.243 kg/kW-hr) was to the open type combustion chamber at all loads when operated
lower than the standard engine having HCC (0.288 kg/kW-hr) with POME20. This may be due to better mixture formation of
with biodiesel operation. This may be attributed to better com- POME and air, as a result of better air motion in TRCC. This led to
bustion of POME20 due to better air fuel mixing. The BSFC for better combustion of the biodiesel and thus increased the BTE. In
TRCC further decreased with increasing injection pressure. This addition, at high injection pressure of 220 bar the BTE further
behaviour can be attributed to improved air-fuel mixing due to increased (34.31%) due to better air fuel mixing and complete
better atomization and vaporization of the fuel that led to better combustion. It was also observed that increasing the injection
combustion. However, it was noticed that the BSFC increased pressure above 220 bar decreased BTE. This may be due to decrease
when the injection pressure was increased beyond 220 bar. This in the droplet size of the fuel. A smaller fuel droplet will have lesser
outcome could be attributed to poor combustion due to oxygen momentum that will affect fuel distribution in air. The decrease in
starvation due to lower penetration, poor dispersion of the fuel relative velocity of fuel corresponding to air resulted in poor air
and weak air entrainment. entrainment leading to incomplete combustion.
Table 5
Variations of oxides of nitrogen emissions.
0 86 89 85 92 96 94 72 82
1.256 172 177 168 184 192 174 138 159
2.512 284 293 288 298 310 290 232 276
3.768 516 521 508 542 558 512 432 472
5.024 712 722 702 736 745 716 648 694
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