Achieving high performance and low emission in a dual fuel operated engine with varied injection parameters and combustion chamber shapes

The present paper describes the effect of injection parameters and combustor geometry on performance, emission and combustion characteristics of a turbo-charged diesel (TDI) engine operated in dual fuel mode with calophyllum inophyllum oil methyl ester and babul wood chip generated producer gas. The experimentation were carried out at varied injection timing (IT) (19-24 bTDC), injection pressure (IP) (180-240 bar) in steps of 10 bar and five different combustion chambers (CC) were investigated individually to achieve better performance. Experimental results revealed that at an advanced IT and IP of 24 bTDC and 230 bar, brake thermal efficiency (BTE) showed an overall reduction of 6.35%, while an increment of about 5.68% and 10.88% in brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) and exhaust gas temperature (EGT) respectively. During the emission analysis, carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbon (HC), nitrogen oxide (NOx) and smoke opacity were measured to be 20%, 26.77%, 12.16% and 26.53% lower than conventional fuel. Moreover, toroidal re-entrant combustion chamber (TrCC) was also found to have superior performance, emission and combustion characteristics over the other configurations of combustion chambers. TrCC delivered a performance enhancement of 6.4%, 4.49% and 20.76% in terms of BTE, BSFC and EGT, while and emission level improvement of 34.48%, 33.71% and 38.67% in terms of CO, HC and smoke opacity. However, NOx emission level was deteriorated by 26.66% in compared to standard engine. Based upon the above results, engine with modified TrCC, advanced IT (24 degrees bTDC) and IP (230 bar) enhances the existing performance, emission and combustion characteristics of a TDI engine operated in dual fuel mode, provides freedom from conventional fuel thereby enhancing sustainable energy and its security.