Combustion characteristics, performances and emissions of a biodiesel-producer gas dual fuel engine with varied combustor geometry

This paper presents the overall performance, emission and combustion characteristics of the engine, when fuelled with biodiesel blends of Calophyllum Inophyllum methyl ester as injected fuel and babul wood chip derived producer gas as inducted fuel at constant injection timing (23(0)bTDC), injection pressure (230 bar) and speed (1500 rpm). To improve overall performance, combustion and reduced emission characteristics of the engine, the combustion chamber was varied with 5 different geometries. Experimental results revealed that Toroidal re-entrant combustion chamber had higher Exhaust Gas Temperature and Brake Thermal Efficiency by 20.75% and 6.37% than that of HCC, while Brake Specific Fuel Consumption was reduced by 4.49% at optimal loading condition. However, engine overall performance of TrCC was found to be comparable with Hemi-spherical chamber and other designed combustion chambers. Similarly, comparing exhaust emissions, Oxide of Nitrogen and Carbon dioxide were on its higher side by 19.90% and 27.20% than normal HCC. On the contrary, carbon monoxide, Hydrocarbon and Smoke opacity for TrCC were found to be 76.12%, 33.71% and 38.67% lower than HCC. From the above study, it is finally concluded that converted renewable fuels with TrCC might be utilized as an alternative fuel without any exhaust related problems. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.