Study on performance-emission trade-off and multi-objective optimization of diesel-ethanol-palm biodiesel in a single cylinder CI engine: a Taguchi-fuzzy approach

ABSTRACT

World energy insecurity and other issues like rapid industrialization, stringent emissions, and global warming have inspired researchers to explore the benefits of alternative fuel research for the replacement of fossil fuel. Promulgation of different advantages in non-fossil fuel helps the researcher to step forward for alternative fuel research. In the present experiment, investigation of performance and emission characteristics of different diesel, ethanol, and palm oil biodiesel blend have been studied in a signal cylinder, four-stroke direct injection CI (compression ignition) engine. The experimental results indicate almost the similar performance and emission characteristics for all test fuels. Almost equal nitrogen oxides (NOx) emission and lower brake specific energy consumption (BSEC) with some penalty of increased unburnt hydrocarbon (UHC) emission have been observed for all blends. Finally, a fuzzy-based Taguchi method has been chosen for the selection of appropriate engine operating range (load) and fuel blend for optimum performance and emission characteristics. Based on the highest MPCI value (0.676), 20% load and B4 (D75B20E5) have been found as the optimum operating range and fuel blend, respectively, for the maximum reduction of BSEC, NOx, and UHC emissions compared to other blends.

KEYWORDS:

• Performance-emission trade-off
• Taguchi-fuzzy
• signal-to-noise ratio
• MPCI (multi-performance characteristic index)
• optimization

Acknowledgments

The author’s grateful thanks to Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Agartala, Tripura (West), India for supporting and giving permission for the fulfillment of this experiment in IC engine lab.

Nomenclature

Table

Additional information

Funding

No funding support from any companies or industries are involved for the completion of the work.

Notes on contributors

Suman Dey

Suman Dey Ph.D. scholar in Mechanical Engineering Department, NIT Agartala. His field of research including alternative fuels, fuel additives, engine parameters optimization. He is also working with the effect of fuel additives for engine emission reduction.

Narath Moni Reang

Narath Moni Reang, Ph.D. scholar in Mechanical Engineering Department, NIT Agartala. His field of research including alternative fuels and different fuel additives for engine combustion.

Madhujit Deb

Madhujit Deb, Assistant professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department, NIT Agartala. His field of research includes alternative fuels and IC engine.

Pankaj Kumar Das

Pankaj Kumar Das, Assistant professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department, NIT Agartala. His interested working areas are machine design, workshop process, tribology, strength of material and finite element methods.