The effect of rapeseed oil methyl ester on direct injection Diesel engine performance and exhaust emissions

This article presents the comparative bench testing results of a four stroke, four cylinder, direct injection, unmodified, naturally aspirated Diesel engine when operating on neat RME and its 5%, 10%, 20% and 35% blends with Diesel fuel. The purpose of this research is to examine the effects of RME inclusion in Diesel fuel on the brake specific fuel consumption (bsfc) of a high speed Diesel engine, its brake thermal efficiency, emission composition changes and smoke opacity of the exhausts. The brake specific fuel consumption at maximum torque (273.5 g/kW h) and rated power (281 g/kW h) for RME is higher by 18.7% and 23.2% relative to Diesel fuel. It is difficult to determine the RME concentration in Diesel fuel that could be recognised as equally good for all loads and speeds. The maximum brake thermal efficiency varies from 0,356 to 0.398 for RME and from 0.373 to 0.383 for Diesel fuel. The highest fuel energy content based economy (9.36-9.61 MJ/kW h) is achieved during operation oil blend B 10, whereas the lowest ones belong to B35 and neat RME. The maximum NOx emissions increase proportionally with the mass percent of oxygen in the biofuel and engine speed, reaching the highest values at the speed of 2000 min(-1), the highest being 2132 ppm value for the B35 blend and 2107 ppm for RME. The carbon monoxide, CO, emissions and visible smoke emerging from the biodiesel over all load and speed ranges are lower by up to 51.6% and 13.5% to 60.3%, respectively. The carbon dioxide, CO2, emissions along with the fuel consumption and gas temperature, are slightly higher for the B20 and B35 blends and neat RME. The emissions of unburned hydrocarbons, HC, for all biofuels are low, ranging at 5-21 ppm levels. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.