Author : M.V.S. Murali Krishna and K. Vamsi Krishna

Fuel crisis because of dramatic increase in vehicular population and environmental concerns have renewed interest of scientific community to look for alternative fuels of bio-origin such as vegetable oils. Vegetable oils can be produced from forests, vegetable oil crops, and oil bearing biomass materials. Non-edible vegetable oils such as linseed oil, mahua oil, rice bran oil, etc. are potentially effective diesel substitute. Vegetable oils have high-energy content. Investigations were carried out to evaluate the performance of a low grade low heat rejection (LHR) diesel engine with ceramic coated cylinder head (ceramic coating of thickness 500 microns was done on inside portion of cylinder head) with different operating conditions (normal temperature and pre-heated temperature) of linseed biodiesel with varied injector opening pressure and injection timing. Performance parameters (brake thermal efficiency, brake specific energy consumption, exhaust gas temperature, coolant load and volumetric efficiency) were evaluated at different values of brake mean effective pressure (BMEP) of the engine. Comparative studies were made with conventional engine (CE) with biodiesel and also with mineral diesel operation working on similar operating conditions. Engine with LHR combustion chamber improved its performance when compared with CE with biodiesel operation.

Keywords: Crude vegetable oil; biodiesel, LHR combustion chamber, fuel performance.

Article published in International Journal of Current Engineering and Technology, Vol.4, No.6 (Dec-2014)