Investigation of performance and emission characteristics of diesel engine using thermal barrier coating and nanoparticle addition to palm biodiesel

Abstract

The diesel engines are preferred mainly due to their resilience, robustness, and low fuel consumption. In order to realize the enhanced efficiency of the Compression Ignition (CI) engine, the pollutant gases including CO, HC, NOx and the smoke emissions were significantly increased which are directly linked with adverse health or environmental problems. During recent years, Alternative fuels (Biodiesel) are drawing increased consideration worldwide as substitutes for the petroleum-based transport fuels which are believed to solve problems including energy cost, energy security and global warming. The Low heat rejection of the CI engine also plays a key role on the improvisation of the combustion efficiency and the reduction of the harmful pollutant gases. This research investigation is completely focused on the improvisation of the performance, combustion, and the emission characteristics of the CI engine using the Thermal Barrier Coating (TBC) of the combustion chamber components and also the addition of the cerium oxide nanoparticles to the neat palm biodiesel fuel. The novelty of this research investigation was based on the usage of the combination of Yttria Stabilized Zirconia (YSZ) and Alumina (Al2O3) as TBC on the cylinder liner and piston head of engine. This was justified because most of the previous investigations concentrated on the TBC on the piston, valve and cylinder head alone. The utility factor of the palm biodiesel (BD 100) in the low heat rejection engine also proved to be another significant and novel factor in the present investigation which was outlined in this experimental work. The first phase of the investigation was the selection of the TBC material and the coating methodology. The Yttria Stabilized Zirconia (YSZ) and the Alumina (Al2O3) mixed ceramic powder was selected based on the wear strength, adhesive strength, and the Scanning Electron Microscope(SEM) and Energy-Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy(EDXS) test results which were conducted on different potential ceramic materials. The selected material temperature and the heat flux distribution were analyzed using different coating thicknesses of 0.1mm, 0.15mm and 0.2mm which were applied on the piston head and the cylinder liner using Finite Element Analysis. The suitable coating thicknesses of 0.1mm on the piston head and 0.2mm on the cylinder liner were established using Solid work simulation. The methodology of coating was selected as the Air Plasma Spray (ASP) because of its possibility to coat 5µm thickness of ceramic powder particles on the base metal and also due to the prevalence of high newline