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A novel Air-Alcohol INDUCTOR with an inherent flexibility to tailor the alcohol flow rate, has been developed for a multi-cylinder, variable-speed, vehicular Diesel engine to enable operation in the Alcohol-Diesel bi-fuel mode. Tests have been carried out on the dynamometer over the whole speed range of the engine. Also road tests have been carried out under constant vehicular speed conditions. Upto 48% Diesel substitution was achieved on road without reduction in thermal efficiency. Laboratory tests indicate lower exhaust temperatures and lower smoke intensities than in the diesel mode.

Diesel has been used extensively as fuel for small agricultural engines in India. As natural gas is available in abundance, lot of interest is shown to substitute gas for diesel in these engines either partially or fully. Natural gas has a high Octane rating and hence to replace diesel fully, major irreversible changes in the diesel engine is required. However, in the dual fuel (diesel + gas) system a large percentage of diesel substitution is possible by the addition of the components of the conversion system. A simple dual fuel system has been developed indigenously for this study. Engine tests with dual fuel gas system have been conducted on a single cylinder diesel engine. These results show that the performance of the engine with dual fuel system can almost match that of standard diesel engine.

A gas turbine combustion system is an embodiment of all complexities that engineering equipment can have. The flow is three dimensional, swirling, turbulent, two phase and reacting. The design and development of combustors, until recent past, was an art than science. If one takes the route of development through experiments, it is quite time consuming and costly. Compared to the other two components viz., compressor and turbine, the combustion system is not yet completely amenable to mathematical analysis. A gas turbine combustor is both geometrically and fluid dynamically quite complex. The major challenge a combustion engineer faces is the space constraint. As the combustion chamber is sandwiched between compressor and turbine there is a limitation on the available space. The critical design aspect is in facing the aerodynamic challenges with minimum pressure drop. Accurate mathematical analysis of such a system is next to impossible.