Author : Y. Nagini, Maddali V.S. Murali Krishna and S. Naga Sarada

The petrol engine has provided reliable small units for personalized transport and in this way revolutionized the living habits of people to a great extent. Indeed the petrol engine powered automobile and diesel engine powered buses and trucks are the symbols of our modern technological society. Four stroke engines offer many advantages like higher thermal efficiency, volumetric efficiency than two stroke engines. In the scenario of depletion of fossil fuels, the search for alternative fuels has become inevitable. Alcohols, the renewable fuels are important substitutes of gasoline, as their properties are comparable to gasoline fuels. That too, their octane numbers are greater than those of gasoline fuels. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the performance of the engine with a variable compression ratio (3-9), four–stroke, single–cylinder spark ignition (SI) engine with gasohol (20% ethanol, 80% gasoline, by vol) having copper coated engine [CCE, copper-(thickness,300 μ) coated on piston crown, inner side of liner and cylinder head] and compared with conventional SI engine (CE) with neat gasoline operation. Performance parameters of brake thermal efficiency, brake specific energy consumption, exhaust gas temperature and volumetric efficiency at full load operation were determined with CCE with gasohol and compared with CE with neat gasoline operation. CCE showed improved performance over CE with both test fuels.

Keywords: Alternative fuels, methanol, ethanol, CE, CCE, performance parameters

Article published in International Journal of Current Engineering and Technology, Vol.6, No.3 (June-2016)