Investigation on extending knock limit in hydrogen fueled diesel engine using vegetable oil as base fuel

Abstract

The increasing demand for energy is a phenomenon that occurred in the past, continues in the present and is further set to increase exponentially in the future years too, owing to ever-increasing population and urbanization. This energy demand necessitates the increased dependency on conventional energy resources i.e., fossil fuel sources. Being a research topic of great interest, the need to identify new renewable based fuel resources for the production of energy has gained momentum and attention in recent years. Mahua Oil (MO) has attracted the attention of researches due to the fact that MO is locally available and has calorific value and cetane number similar to those of diesel. However, MO suffers from poor volatility and high viscosity, when used in unmodified Compression Ignition (CI) engine, which makes it inferior in the competition to conventional fuel sources. The dual fuel mode in CI engine has better operational characteristics, efficient in productivity and it could run with two reactive fuels with no major modifications. Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) and Water Injection (WI) techniques are gaining confidence in improving the substitution of gaseous fuel in CI engine without any significant increase in the emission level. In this thesis, an experimental study has been conducted to effectively utilize MO in CI engine. Initially, Neat Mahua Oil (NMO) was purchased from a provisional shop. Similarly, Neat Diesel (ND) (baseline fuel) was bought from a fuel station, filtered well and its properties were determined. The researcher conducted variable load tests in a single cylinder CI Engine in order to measure the performance, combustion and emission parameters of the fuels considered for this research. In the initial phase of research, testing was done with ND and NMO in the test engine where in the maximum power output of the engine was varied at 100%, 80%, 60%, 40% and 20%. Modifications were made in the test engine to make it operate in dual fuel mode for the next work phase.