Effect of intake port design modifications on diesel engine characteristics fuelled by pine oil-diesel blends

ABSTRACT

The effect of the modified intake port with various inclined nozzle angles such as 30°, 60°, and 90° on the diesel engine characteristics when operated with pine oil-diesel blends is investigated. Prior to the engine experimental study, a computational analysis was performed to investigate the impact produced on the flow field parameters of an engine due to modified intake port design. The numerical study revealed increased swirl velocity and turbulence for intake port with a 60° single-pass configuration compared to other design configurations. With evidence of improved swirl velocity and the proposed modified intake port design from the numerical study, an experimental investigation was performed using pine oil blends in the diesel engine with modified intake port configurations. The preliminary engine test findings with standard intake port design indicated that P50 (50% pine oil + 50% diesel) has higher peak engine cylinder pressure and heat release rates than P10 (10% pine oil + 90% diesel). Additionally, the 60° single-pass configuration showed further increase in peak pressure and peak heat release followed by standard and other intake port design configurations. At high load, the P50 blend showed a 12.3% increase in BTE for 60° intake port design configuration in comparison to the standard design configuration. While for the same blend, the engine out emissions like hydrocarbon (HC) and smoke were reduced by about 6.6% and 17.6%, respectively, and nitrogen oxide (NO_X) emission was increased by 29% for the 60° single-pass configuration when compared to the standard design configuration. Overall, the intended intake port design modification strategy increased the swirl velocity and turbulence, which improved the air/fuel mixing and combustion. This study identifies 60° single-pass configuration as an optimum design on account of the aforementioned improved engine combustion, performance, and emissions.

KEYWORDS:

• Pine oil
• biofuel
• intake port modification
• swirl
• turbulence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).