Performance evaluation of LHR diesel engine with pongamia oil as alternate fuel

摘要

The growing demand coupled with high cost and uncertainty of crude oil supplies has led to an extensive search for a suitable alternate fuel obtained from renewable sources. In this context, pongamia oil, non-edible vegetable oil shows a greater potential for replacing conventional diesel fuel quite effectively as its cetane number is very close to that of diesel fuel. But the drawbacks associated with this oil are low volatility and high viscosity call for hot combustion chamber provided by low heat rejection diesel engine. Performance parameters like brake specific energy consumption exhaust gas temperature at different brake mean effective pressures, pollution levels like smoke and nitrogen oxide combustion characteristics at peak load operation of the engine with conventional piston and liner and insulated engine with air gap piston and air gap liner at different operating conditions like room temperature and pre-heated temperature (temperature at which its viscosity is equal to that of diesel fuel) of the pongamia oil at different injecuon angles are studied and compared to that of engine with diesel operation at same operating conditions.