An Experimental Investigation of Performance Characteristic on Four Stroke Diesel Engine using LPG Biodiesel

Environmental degradation and depleting oil reserves are matter of great concern round the globe. This study aim to investigate the performance characteristic of mixed fuel LPG and Diesel under compression ignition in an effort to develop highly efficient and low brake specific fuel consumption based CI engine. An experimental investigation was made to evaluate the performance and combustion characteristics of a four stroke, single cylinder C.I. engine with LPG and diesel fuel was blended with diesel in proportions of 10%, 20% and 30% by volume and studied for the load range of No load to Max. Load (15 kg), with the engine operated at constant speed. The performance parameters considered for comparing are brake power, brake specific fuel consumption, brake specific energy consumption, brake thermal efficiency etc. of the engine. The performance parameters were found to be very close to that of pure diesel. The brake thermal efficiency were better than pure diesel for the blend B20 under certain loads. From the investigation it may be concluded that B20 (20% LPG + 80% Diesel) gives better performance in comparison to other modified oil. It is also concluded that either blending up to 20% or LPG can be used in diesel engines in rural areas for stationary applications like irrigation, processing of agricultural products and electric generation. From all these observations, it is recommended that the blends LPG with diesel up to 20% by volume is a replacement to diesel fuel for running the diesel engine without sacrificing the power output.