Author : R.Chanakya, D.Srikanth, M. Ravi Chandra and M.V.S. Murali Krishna

In the scenario of fast depletion of fossil fuels, search for alternative fuels has become pertinent. Alcohols and vegetable oils are important substitutes for diesel fuel as they are renewable in nature. However, drawbacks of alcohols (low cetane number and low energy content) and vegetable oils (high viscosity and low volatile in nature) cause combustion problems in diesel engine and hence call for low heat rejection (LHR) engine, which can burn low calorific value fuel and give high heat release rate. They are many methods to induct alcohol in diesel engine out of which blending of alcohol with vegetable oil is simple technique. Neat vegetable oils produce high particulate emissions in diesel engine as they contain fatty acids. Neat alcohol causes combustion problems as it has low cetane number. Hence blending of alcohol with vegetable oils is a promising technique. Butanol has higher calorific value than ethanol and methanol. Hence use of butanol is finding favor in diesel engine. Investigations were carried out to evaluate the performance parameters of a low grade low heat rejection (LHR) diesel engine or LHR–1 engine consisting of ceramic coated cylinder head with crude cottonseed oil blended with butanol with varied injector opening pressure. Performance parameters of brake thermal efficiency (BTE), exhaust gas temperature (EGT), coolant load and volumetric efficiency (VE) were determined at various values of brake mean effective pressure (BMEP). Conventional engine (CE) showed deteriorated performance, while LHR engine showed compatible performance with crude cottonseed oil. (CSO) operation when compared with neat diesel operation at recommended injection timing and pressure. The performance of both version of the engine improved with vegetable oil blended with butanol with varied injector opening pressure.

Keywords: Vegetable oil, Injector opening pressure, LHR engine, Classification, Fuel Performance

Article published in International Journal of Current Engineering and Technology, Vol.7, No.4 (Aug-2017)