Experimental investigations on the Effect of different nanofluids on Engine combustion ehaviour of a Biofuel based diesel engine

Abstract

Energy is the single word which drives the world from the past to the future. People migrate from one place to another to satisfy the needs of their day to day life. For the people to migrate the tool being used is transport, which utilizes a huge amount of energy in the form of fuel. Owing to the increasing population, the demand for the fossil fuel (energy) grows tremendously but the depletion of the fuel may not help us to meet the future demands. Some other problems with fossil fuel are: they are non-renewable, costlier and also emit toxic emissions while combustion. To ensure continuous supply of fuel without the drawbacks of the above said fossil fuels, the researchers are focusing on the alternative renewable fuel. Among the fuels used in the transportation sector (Petrol and Diesel), the diesel fuel leads due to its better performance obtained through its high compression ratio. So finding a satisfactory alternative fuel for Compression Ignition (CI) engines has become a fascinating area of research. Vegetable oil (mahua) is found to be good alternative fuel for CI engine because of its availability and some of its properties being close to those of diesel fuel. But the difficulties encountered while using vegetable oils directly can be ascribed to their high density, viscosity and poor volatility. Due to the above said properties the vegetable oils burn partially or sometimes remains unburnt. Combustion of vegetable oil in CI engine causes inferior performance and increased emissions. To improve performance by reducing emissions, some of the methods have been adopted in this work. The mahua oil used as fuel was obtained from mahua seed. The engine used for this research was a single cylinder Kirloskar Av1 engine newline