Experimental Investigation of Performance, Combustion and Emission Characteristics in Single Cylinder Low Heat Rejection Diesel Engine Using Diesel and Neem Kernel Biodiesel

The use of methyl esters of vegetable oil known as biodiesel are increasingly popular because of their low impact on environment, green alternate fuel and most interestingly it’s use in engines does not require major modification in the engine hardware. Use of biodiesel as sole fuel in conventional direct injection diesel engine results in combustion problems, hence it is proposed to use the biodiesel in low heat rejection (LHR) diesel engines with its significance characteristics of higher operating temperature, maximum heat release, higher brake thermal efficiency (BTE) and ability to handle the lower calorific value (CV) fuel. In this work biodiesel from Neem kernel oil was used as sole fuel in LHR direct injection (DI) diesel engine. The low heat rejection engine was developed with uniform metal matrix composites (MMC) coating of cylinder head. The experimental investigation was carried out in a single cylinder water-cooled LHR direct injection diesel engine. In this investigation, the combustion, performance and emission analysis were carried out in a diesel and biodiesel fueled LHR engine under identical operating conditions. The brake thermal efficiency (BTE) of LHR engine with biodiesel is decreased marginally than LHR engine operated with diesel. Carbon monoxide (CO) and Hydrocarbon (HC) emission levels are decreased but in contrast the Oxide of Nitrogen (NOx) emission level was increased due to the higher peak temperature. In the final analysis, it was found that, the results are quite satisfactory.