Experimental investigations on the full load performance of a producer gas-diesel dual fuel engine

Abstract

Fossil fuels are depleting rapidly because of incremental consumption rate due to population growth and necessary comforts on par with civilization. In this connection, the conventional fuels especially petrol and diesel for internal combustion engines, are getting exhausted at an alarming rate. In order to conserve the fossil fuels or to plan for survival of technology in future it is essential to plan for alternate fuels. Further, these fossil fuels cause serious environmental problems as they release toxic gases into the atmosphere at high temperatures and concentrations. Some of the pollutants released by the internal combustion engines are HC, CO, NOx, smoke and particulate matter. The predicted global energy consumption is double by 2030 and quadruple by 2100. In view of this and many other related issues, these fuels will have to be replaced completely or partially by less harmful alternative, eco-friendly and renewable source fuels for the internal combustion engines. Hence, throughout the world, lot of research work is in progress pertaining to suitability and feasibility of alternative fuels. Biomass is one of the promising sources of energy to mitigate both the serious problems of the society viz., depletion of fossil fuels and environmental pollution. In the present work, a Producer Gas, a product of partial combustion of biomass and gasification, is used to replace conventional diesel fuel partially to enhance required conditions for combustion and for clean burning. A four-stroke, single-cylinder diesel engine, most widely used in agricultural sector, has been considered for the purpose of experimentation. The fuel injection pressure varying arrangement is provided for the test engine. For the test engine the instrumentation is provided to compute the data pertaining to combustion, performance and emission. The engine was modified to run on the dual-fuel mode, using diesel as the pilot fuel and producer gas as the main fuel. For this purpose, a separate air producer gas mixing junction has been inc