Effect of acetylene addition in safflower biodiesel fueled CI engine–an experimental study

ABSTRACT

The aim of the current study is to study the effect of acetylene addition inducted with intake air with safflower biodiesel (SME) as fuel in single cylinder Compression Ignition (CI) engine. Replacement of diesel with SME led to inferior combustion as a result of high viscosity and density. Acetylene was inducted along with intake air in the inlet manifold at various mass shares with diesel and SME as fuel. All the experiments were conducted at 50% and 100% load condition with different acetylene mass shares until knock limit. Tests were conducted until the knock limit was identified at each load with acetylene induction. Acetylene induction improved the brake thermal efficiency (BTE) with both diesel and SME at 100% load, and the improvement was proportional to the increase in acetylene energy share. BTE was improved by 6.6% and 14.3% for maximum acetylene share with diesel and SME, respectively, while the improvement was not significant at 50% load. SME emitted higher NOx in comparison to diesel at both the load conditions and further increased with acetylene induction. While smoke was reduced with SME and further reduced with addition of acetylene at all the loads. HC, CO, and CO₂ emissions were lowered with acetylene addition, and maximum reduction of all these three emissions were observed at maximum knock limit. From the experimental study, it is concluded that poor performance of SME was improved with acetylene addition and the BTE of SME with peak acetylene mass share of 10.8% is similar to diesel. Hence, the combination of biodiesel and acetylene can replace diesel in CI engine to match the emission norms.

KEYWORDS:

• Safflower biodiesel
• acetylene induction
• dual-fuel combustion
• NOx emission
• smoke emission
• CO₂ emission

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Balasubramanian K.

Balasubramanian K., Research scholar, Pursuing PhD from sathyabama Institute of science and technology in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He is currently doing research on alternative fuels with acetylene induction  along with diesel and optimizing the various flow rate of acetylene in the CI Engines with different biodiesels.

Purushothaman Krishnan

Purushothaman Krishnan, ME, PhD  Professor and Head of the department of Mechanical Engineering working in St.Peter’s college of Engineering and Technology Avadi, Chennai -54. He is doing lot of research in alternative fuels in IC Engines and also his area of interest is in Bio fuels, optimization, and thermal analysis in engines.