Experimental and empirical analysis of an IC engine operating with ternary blends of diesel, karanja and roselle biodiesel

In the present study biodiesel is derived from karanja and roselle oil by transesterification process and different ternary blends is prepared with conventional diesel fuel with different proprtions B1 (D50KB45RB5), B2 (D50KB40RB10) and (D50KB30RB20). The test were performed at different compression ratio (15.5, 16.5, 17.5, 18.5), engine load (20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, 100) to evaluate the engine characteristics and compared the result with diesel fuel. Blend B1 showed lower brake thermal efficiency and exhaust gas temperature by 1.48% and 1.38%, while on other side brake specific fuel consumption increased by 4.13% compare to diesel fuel. Blend B1 shows lower nitrogen of oxide emission by 15.3, while increased in carbon dioxide emission by 1.92% compared to diesel fuel. Additionally, an empirical model was also derived using an artificial neural network to characterize the operation behavior. For various operating conditions, the network was able to predict outputs satisfactorily with high r and r(2) value of 0.9863 +/- 0.192 and 0.8894 +/- 0.0374 respectively. Further investigations showed that the engine variables displayed significantly high empirical dependencies among themselves and therefore suggests for plausible empirically reduced models. These results will provide guidance for prediction of multivariable response of IC engine.