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Biodiesel is mono alkyl ester derived from vegetable oils through transesterification reaction and can be used as an alternative to mineral diesel. In the present research, methyl ester of rice-bran oil (ROME) is produced through transesterification of rice-bran oil using methanol in presence of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) catalyst. Various properties like viscosity, density, flash point, calorific value of the biodiesel thus prepared are characterized and found comparable to diesel. On the basis of previous research for performance, emission and combustion characteristics, a 20% blend of ROME (B20) was selected as optimum biodiesel blend for endurance test. Endurance test of 100 hours was conducted on a medium duty direct injection transportation diesel engine. Tests were conducted under predetermined loading cycles in two phases: engine operating on mineral diesel and engine fuelled with 20% biodiesel blend.

New combustion concepts developed in internal combustion engines such as homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) have attracted serious attention due to the possibilities to simultaneously achieve higher efficiency and lower emissions, which will impact the environment positively. The HCCI combustion concept has potential of ultra-low NOX and particulate matter (PM) emission in comparison to a conventional gasoline or a diesel engine. Environmental Legislation Agencies are becoming increasingly concerned with particulate emissions from engines because the health and environmental effects of particulates emitted are now known and can be measured by sophisticated instruments. Particulate emissions from HCCI engines have been usually considered negligible, and the measurement of mass emission of PM from HCCI combustion systems shows their negligible contribution to PM mass. However some recent studies suggest that PM emissions from HCCI engines cannot be neglected.

Homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engines are attracting attention as next-generation internal combustion engines mainly because of very low NOx and PM emission potential and excellent thermal efficiency. Particulate emissions from HCCI engines have been usually considered negligible however recent studies suggest that PM number emissions from HCCI engines cannot be neglected. This study is therefore conducted on a modified four cylinder diesel engine to investigate this aspect of HCCI technology. One cylinder of the engine is modified to operate in HCCI mode for the experiments and port fuel injection technique is used for preparing homogenous charge in this cylinder. Experiments are conducted at 1200 and 2400 rpm engine speeds using gasoline, ethanol, methanol and butanol fuels. A partial flow dilution tunnel was employed to measure the mass of the particulates emitted on a pre-conditioned filter paper.

The development of more efficient and powerful internal combustion engines requires the use of new and advanced engine technologies. These advanced engine technologies and emission requirements for meeting stringent global emission norms have increased the power densities of engine leading to downsizing. In all these engines, cylinder head and liner are normally cooled but the piston is not cooled, making it susceptible to disintegration/ thermal damage. Material constraints restrict the increase in thermal loading of piston. High piston temperature rise may lead to engine seizure because of piston warping. So pistons are additionally cooled by oil jet impingement from the underside of the piston in heavy duty diesel engines. However, if the temperature at the underside of the piston, where the oil jet strikes the piston, is above the boiling point of the oil, it may contribute to the mist generation.

Vegetable oils are produced from numerous oil seed crops. While all vegetable oils have high energy content, most require some processing to assure safe use in internal combustion engines. Some of these oils already have been evaluated as substitutes for diesel fuels. However, several operational and durability problems of using straight vegetable oils in diesel engines are reported in the literature, caused by of their higher viscosity and low volatility compared to mineral diesel. In the present research, experiments were designed to study the effect of reducing Jatropha oil's viscosity by blending it with mineral diesel and thereby eliminating the effect of high viscosity and poor volatility on combustion characteristics of the engine. Experimental investigations have been carried out to examine the combustion characteristics of an indirect injection transportation diesel engine running with diesel, and jatropha oil blends with diesel.

Biodiesel (fatty acid methyl ester) is a non-toxic and biodegradable alternative fuel that is obtained from renewable sources. A major hurdle in the commercialization of biodiesel from virgin oil, in comparison to petroleum-based diesel, is its cost of production, primarily the raw material cost. Used cooking oils or waste cooking oils are economical sources for biodiesel production, which can help in commercialization of biodiesel. However, the products formed during cooking/frying (such as free fatty acids and various polymerized triglycerides) affect the transesterification reaction and the biodiesel properties. In present experimental investigations, wastecooking oil obtained from restaurant was used to produce biodiesel through transesterification process and the chemical kinetics of biodiesel production was studied. Biodiesel was blended with petroleum diesel in different proportions.

The interface between the piston rings and cylinder liner play an important role in total frictional losses and mechanical wear of internal combustion engine and is increasingly coming under scrutiny as legislated particulate emission standards are getting more and more stringent. The capacitance method is used for measurement of minimum oil film thickness between piston ring and liner interface. Measurement of capacitance formed between the piston ring and a probe mounted flush in the liner provides an accurate means of determining the oil film thickness provided that the region between the probe and liner is flooded with oil and dielectric constant of the oil is known. This paper presents detailed design and measurement of lubricating oil film thickness using capacitive micro sensor in a non-firing engine simulator. Lubricating oil film thickness was found to vary between 0.2μm to 8μm in the non firing engine simulator.

Increased environmental awareness and depletion of resources are driving industry to develop alternative fuels that are environmentally more acceptable. Fatty acids esters (biodiesel) are known to be good alternative fuels. Due to economic reasons, the use of cheap raw materials for biodiesel production is preferred. In this case, ricebran oil, non-edible grade is used. Base catalyzed transesterification of ricebran oil is investigated and process parameters for ricebran biodiesel production are optimized. Various properties like viscosity, density, flash point, calorific value of biodiesel thus prepared are characterized as per ASTM D6751 and found comparable to mineral diesel. Steady state engine dynamometer test at 1800 rpm has been carried out to evaluate the performance and emission characteristics of a medium duty transportation DI diesel engine. Emission tests with all the fuel blends have also been carried out using European 13 MODE test (ECE R49).

Due to the demands of the market to increase efficiency and power density of large MW size gas engines, existing ignition schemes are gradually reaching their limits. These limitations initially triggered the development of laser ignition as an effective alternative, first only for gas engines and now for a much wider range of internal combustion engines revealing a number of immediate advantages like no electrode erosion or flame kernel quenching. Within this broad range investigation, laser plasmas were generated by ns Nd-YAG laser pulses and characterized by emission and Schlieren diagnostic methods. High-pressure chamber experiments with lean hydrogen- air mixtures were successfully performed and allowed the determination of essential parameters like minimum pulse energies at different ignition pressures and temperatures as well as at variable fuel air compositions. In this way, relevant parameters were acquired allowing estimation/ development of future laser ignition systems.

The scarce and rapidly depleting conventional petroleum resources have promoted research for alternative fuels for internal combustion engines. Among various possible options, fuels derived from vegetable oils present promising “greener” substitutes for fossil fuels. Vegetable oils due to their agricultural origin are able to reduce net CO2 emissions to the atmosphere along with import substitution of petroleum products. However, several operational and durability problems of using straight vegetable oils in diesel engines reported, which are because of their higher viscosity and low volatility compared to mineral diesel. In the present research, experiments were designed to study the effect of reducing Jatropha oil's viscosity by blending with mineral diesel, thereby eliminating its effect on combustion characteristics of the engine. In the present experimental research, vegetable oil (Jatropha Curcus) was used as substitute fuel.

The development of vehicles continues to be determined by increasingly stringent emissions standards including CO2 emissions and fuel consumption. To fulfill the simultaneous emission requirements for near zero pollutant and low CO2 levels, which are the challenges of future powertrains, many research studies are currently being carried out world over on new engine combustion process, such as Controlled Auto Ignition (CAI) for gasoline engines and Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) for diesel engines. In HCCI combustion engine, ignition timing and combustion rates are dominated by physical and chemical properties of fuel/air/residual gas mixtures, boundary conditions including ambient temperature, pressure, and humidity and engine operating conditions such as load, speed etc.

Vegetable oils have energy content suitable to be used as compression ignition (CI) engine fuel. However, several operational and durability problems of using straight vegetable oils in CI engines are reported in the literature, which are primarily caused by their higher viscosity and low volatility compared to mineral diesel. The viscosity can be brought in acceptable range by (i) chemical process of transesterification, (ii) blending of oil with mineral diesel or (iii) by heating the vegetable oil using exhaust gas waste heat. Reduction of viscosity by blending or exhaust gas heating saves the chemical processing cost of transesterification. Present experimental investigations were carried out for evaluating combustion, performance and emission behavior of Jatropha oil blends in unheated conditions in a direct injection CI engine at different load and constant engine speed (1500 rpm).

The world energy demand has witnessed uncertainties in two dimensions. The scarcity and depletion of conventional petroleum sources are causes of great concern worldwide. Combustion of fossil fuels has led to unprecedented rise in the global CO2 level, leading to global warming. Therefore, efforts are underway in several countries to search for suitable alternative fuels that are environment friendly. Vegetable oils of non-edible nature are such alternative fuels, which can form part of potential solution. Vegetable oils, due to their agricultural origin, are able to reduce CO2 emissions to the atmosphere along with import substitution of petroleum products In the present research, experiment were designed to study the effect of reducing Neem oil's high viscosity by increasing the fuel temperature and thereby its effect on combustion and emission characteristics of the engine.

Increased environmental awareness and depletion of fossil fuel resources are driving industry to develop alternative fuels that are environmentally more acceptable. Vegetable oils are potential alternative fuels. Vegetable oils in India are produced from numerous oil-seed crops. While all vegetable oils have high energy content, most require some processing to ensure safe usage in internal combustion engines. Most detrimental properties of oils are its high viscosity, low volatility and polyunsaturated character. The most widely used method is to convert vegetable oils into biodiesel. Biodiesel fuels are primary esters, which are produced by transesterifcation of vegetable oils. Several vegetable oil esters have been investigated so far in different parts of the world and found suitable to be used in diesel engines.

Due to the increasingly stricter emission legislations and growing demand for lower fuel consumption, there have been significant efforts to improve combustion efficiency, while satisfying the emission requirements. Homogenous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) combustion offers significant efficiency improvements compared to conventional gasoline engines. However, due to the nature of HCCI, fully homogeneous charge HCCI combustion can be realized only in a limited operating range. Control of HCCI engines to obtain the desirable operation requires understanding of how different charge variables influence the cyclic variations in HCCI combustion. Under certain operating conditions, HCCI engines exhibit large cyclic variations in ignition timing. Cyclic variability ranging from stochastic to deterministic patterns can be observed. One important design goal for engine development is to minimize cyclic variability.

Premixed charge compression ignition (PCCI) combustion is an advanced combustion technique, which has the potential to be operated by alternative fuels such as alcohols. PCCI combustion emits lower oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) and results thermal efficiency similar to conventional compression ignition (CI) engines. Due to extremely high heat release rate (HRR), PCCI combustion cannot be used at higher engine loads, which make it difficult to be employed in production grade engines. This study focused on development of an advanced combustion engine, which can operate in both combustion modes such as CI combustion as well as PCCI combustion mode. This Hybrid combustion system was controlled by an open engine control unit (ECU), which varied the fuel injection parameters for mode switching between CI and PCCI combustion modes.

Homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) is an advanced combustion concept that is developed as an alternative to diesel engines with higher thermal efficiency along with ultralow NOx and PM emissions. To study the performance of this novel technique, experiments were performed in a two cylinder engine, in which one cylinder is modified to operate in HCCI mode while other cylinder operates in conventional CI mode. The quality of homogeneous mixture of air and fuel is the key feature of HCCI combustion. Low volatility of diesel is a major hurdle in achieving HCCI combustion because it is difficult to make a homogeneous mixture of air and fuel. This problem is resolved by external mixture preparation technique in uses a dedicated diesel vaporizer with an electronic control system. All the injection parameters such as fuel quantity, fuel injection timing, injection delay etc., are controlled by the injection driver circuit.

The homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) combustion process is capable of providing both high ‘diesel-like’ efficiencies and very low NOx and particulate emissions. However, among several technical challenges, controlling the combustion phasing, particularly during transients is a major issue, which must be resolved to exploit its commercial applications. This study is focused on the experimental investigations of behavior of combustion timing and other combustion parameters during startup and load transients. The study is conducted on a gasoline fuelled HCCI engine by varying intake air temperature and air-fuel ratio at different engine speeds. Port fuel injection technique is used for preparing homogeneous mixture of gasoline and air. For fueling startup transient test, fuel injection was turned off, and the engine was motored for several minutes until the fire-deck, intake and exhaust temperatures stabilized.

Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) offers great promise for excellent fuel economy and extremely low emissions of NOx and PM. HCCI combustion lacks direct control on the "start of combustion" such as spark timing in SI engines and fuel injection timing in CI engines. Auto ignition of a homogeneous mixture is very sensitive to operating conditions of the engine. Even small variations of the load can change the timing from "too early" to "too late" combustion. Thus a fast combustion phasing control is required since it sets the performance limitation of the load control. Crank angle position for 50% heat release is used as combustion phasing feedback parameter. In this study, a dual-fuel approach is used to control combustion in a HCCI engine. This approach involves controlling the combustion heat release rate by adjusting fuel reactivity according to the conditions inside the cylinder. Two different octane fuels (methanol and n-heptane) are used for the study.

The methyl esters of vegetable oils, known as biodiesel are becoming increasingly popular because of their low environmental impact and potential as a green alternative fuel for diesel engine and they would not require significant modification of existing engine hardware. Methyl ester of rice bran oil (ROME) is derived through transesterification process. Previous research has shown that ROME has comparable performance, lower bsfc in comparison to diesel. There was reduction in the emissions of CO, HC, and smoke but NOx emissions increased. Experimental investigations have been carried out to examine the combustion characteristics in a direct injection transportation diesel engine running with diesel, and 20% blend of rice bran methyl ester with diesel.