Experimental investigations on the performance of a dual fuel diesel engine with hydrogen and LPG as secondary fuels

Abstract

This paper presents experimental investigations on dual fuel operation of a 4 cylinder 39 kW diesel engine. To carry out detailed investigations hydrogen, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and mixture of LPG and hydrogen have been used as secondary fuels. The paper includes details on brake thermal efficiency and on emissions of un-burnt hydrocarbon (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), and NO x. When only hydrogen is used as secondary fuel, maximum enhancement in the brake thermal efficiency is 14% which is obtained with 30% of secondary fuel. When only LPG is used as secondary fuel, maximum enhancement in the brake thermal efficiency (of 5%) is obtained with 40% of secondary fuel. Compared to the pure diesel operation, proportion of un-burnt HC and CO increases, while, emission of NO x reduces in both Tests. There is significant enhancement in performances of dual fuel engine when hydrogen-LPG mixture is used as the secondary fuel. The highlight of this Test is that when 40% of mixture of hydrogen and LPG (30:70) is used as secondary fuel, enhancement in the brake thermal efficiency becomes 24% and HC emission is reduced by 64%. © 2012 Springer-Verlag GmbH.