Experimental Investigations on Performance, Emission and Combustion Characteristics of Multi-Cylinder Diesel Engine Operating on Jatropha Methyl Ester at Very Low Load

Continuous rise in the conventional fuel prices and shortage of its supply have increased the interest in the field of the alternative sources for petroleum fuels. Biodiesel is one such alternative source which provides advantage of pollution control. In the present work, experimentation is carried out to study the performance, emission and combustion characteristics of Jatropha biodiesel and diesel. In this experiment a multi cylinder, four stroke, naturally aspired, direct injection, water cooled, eddy current dynamometer, TATA Indica V2 diesel engine is used at very low load condition. Crude oil is converted into biodiesel and characterization have been done. The experiment is conducted at low load condition. The engine performance parameters studied were brake power, brake specific fuel consumption, brake thermal efficiency. The emission characteristics studied are CO, HC, UBHC, mean gas temperature, exhaust gas temperature and smoke opacity. The combustion characteristics studied are cylinder pressure, mass fraction burned, net heat release rate, cumulative heat release rate and rate of pressure rise. These results are compared to those of pure diesel. These results are again compared to the corresponding results of the diesel. From the graph it has been observed that, there is a reduction in performance, combustion characteristics and emission characteristics compare to the diesel. This is mainly due to lower calorific value, higher viscosity, lower mean gas temperature and delayed combustion process. The present experimental results show that Jatropha biodiesel can be used as an alternative fuel in diesel engine.