Impact of injection pressure on the performance and emission characteristics of a diesel engine fuelled with Annona methyl ester

Abstract

This work investigates the influence of injection pressure (IP) on the performance and emission characteristics of single cylinder direct injection (DI) diesel engine using (20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100%) Annona methyl ester (AME) blended diesel fuel. The performance parameters such as brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC), brake thermal efficiency (BTE) and exhaust gas temperature (EGT) tests were carried out at different IPs (180 bar, 200 bar, 220 bar and 240 bar) at different loads. Emissions levels of HC, CO, smoke and NOx were compared with the diesel fuel. It was found that, at IP 240 bar for A20 blended fuel (20% AME + 80% diesel) shows better performance and lower emission levels which is very close to neat diesel fuel. At this optimized pressure, the BTE is smaller than neat diesel fuel and provides a reduction in carbon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbon and smoke emissions with an increase of oxides of nitrogen emission when compared to that of neat diesel fuel. It is found that an increase of IP increases the BTE and lowers exhaust emissions without any major engine modification.

Keywords:

• Annona methyl esters
• transesterification
• injection pressure
• performance
• emission

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the staff members of Internal Combustion Engineering Department, University College of Engineering, Villupuram, for their support in carrying out these tests.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.