Investigation of the effects of preheating temperature of biodiesel-diesel fuel blends on spray characteristics and injection pump performances

The use of high viscosity biodiesel resulted in poor fuel injection pump performance, leading to a decrease in diesel engine performance. This problem is expected to be solved by preheating high viscosity fuel. This study aims to investigate effect of preheating temperature of biodiesel-diesel fuel blends on fuel spray characteristic and injection pump performance. The study was conducted by using a fuel injection system apparatus in which the fuel was supplied into an injector using a single-plunger fuel injection pump. Several biodiesel-diesel blends were tested at preheating temperatures of 30 degrees C -70 degrees C. Fuel spray pattern was taken using a high speed camera. The result showed that preheating temperature highly influenced fuel spray characteristic and injection pump performance. The higher the biodiesel-diesel fuel blends, the higher the preheating temperatures were needed. Injection pump and injector required different fuel preheating temperatures for obtaining better performance. For B100, the best conditions were obtained at 50 degrees C for injection pump and 70 degrees C for fuel injector that produce almost similar pump efficiency and fuel spray cone angle to diesel fuel. As a whole, a new option of fuel supply system for biodiesel and blends was proposed in order to overcome the transport difficulty of high viscosity fuels. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.