Experimental Study of a Diesel Engine Using Soybean-Based Biodiesel and Diesel Blends

Abstract

The energy need is rising steadily because of accelerated manufacturing development, growing population, increasing urbanisation and economic growth in the world. A huge quantity of fuel is required from various resources to fulfil the energy need. Thus, a large amount of fossil fuels is burned to fulfil the energy demand, which has caused some hazardous effects on the environment. In the present, biodiesel is a very demanding renewable alternative fuel of diesel due to its accessibility, relatively easier manufacturing process and superior fuel characteristics such as storage safety and complete combustion. In this experiment, the effects of diesel-biodiesel blends on the performance of the diesel engine have been carried out experimentally at various loads. The experiment has been conducted on 4-stroke, single-cylinder, water-cooled, variable compression ratio and multi-fuel diesel engine. The engine is fuelled with soybean oil-based biodiesel blends. The fuel is blended in various blend ratios, i.e. D80B20 (80% diesel–20% biodiesel), D70B30 (70% diesel–30% biodiesel) and pure diesel are used to fuel the single-cylinder engine. Also, the performance of the engine is tested by varying the compression ratio. The values of compression ratio, i.e. CR14, CR16, CR18 and CR20, are considered for testing the engine performance. During the engine test, both indicated characteristics and experimental characteristics are found out for each blend and compression ratio. The results reveal that the blend containing 30% soybean biodiesel has better performance than pure diesel. The performance of the engine, fuelled with biodiesel blend B30, is optimum at CR16.