Energy Conversion & Management 41 (2000) 559±572

www.elsevier.com/locate/enconman

E€ect of pilot fuel quantity on the performance of a dual

fuel engine
G.H. Abd Alla*, H.A. Soliman, O.A. Badr, M.F. Abd Rabbo
Zagazig University, Shoubra Faculty of Engineering, 108 Shoubra Street, Cairo, Egypt
Received 21 December 1998; accepted 14 June 1999

Abstract

It is well known that the operation of dual fuel engines at lower loads su€ers from lower thermal
eciency and higher unburned percentages of fuel. To rectify this problem, tests have been conducted
on a special single cylinder compression ignition research engine (Ricardo E6) to investigate the e€ect of
pilot fuel quantity on the performance of an indirect injection diesel engine fuelled with gaseous fuel.
Diesel fuel was used as the pilot fuel and methane or propane was used as the main fuel which was
inducted into the intake manifold to mix with the intake air. Through experimental investigations, it is
shown that, the low eciency and excess emissions at light loads can be improved signi®cantly by
increasing the amount of pilot fuel, while increasing the amount of pilot fuel at high loads led to early
knocking. # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Dual fuel engine; Pilot fuel; Knock; Emissions; IDI engine

1. Introduction

The lower running costs and the use of alternative fuel sources with dual fuel engine
operation attracted many investigators to apply this type of engine in di€erent areas. The
earliest operations of the dual fuel system were in those experiments performed by Cave in
1929 and Helmore and Sokes in 1930, in which burning hydrogen was induced as a secondary
fuel in diesel engines [3]. It was stated that a 20% saving in diesel fuel was possible if hydrogen
was burned instead of being discharged, as the liquid fuel load decreased. However, at that

* Corresponding author. Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority, Technical Institute, P.O. Box 1065, Al Ain,
United Arab Emirates. Tel.: +971-3-632-025; fax: +971-3-643-304.

0196-8904/00/$ - see front matter # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 1 9 6 - 8 9 0 4 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 1 2 4 - 7
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time, the dual fuel engine was not used commercially due to its mechanical complexity and
rough running caused by autoignition and knocking at relatively low compression ratios.
By 1939, the ®rst commercial dual fuel engine, fuelled by town gas or other types of gaseous
fuels, was produced by the National Gas and Oil Engine Co. in Great Britain. This type of
engine was relatively simple in operation and was mainly employed in some areas where cheap
stationary power production was required. During the second World War, scientists in Great
Britain, Germany and Italy paid more attention to the possible application of dual fuel engines
in civil and military areas due to the shortage of liquid fuels. Some vehicles with diesel engines
were successfully converted to dual fuel running. Di€erent kinds of gaseous fuels, such as coal
gas, sewage gas or methane, were employed in conventional diesel engines [2].
After the second World War, due to economical and environmental reasons, dual fuel
engines have been further developed and employed in a very wide range of applications from
stationary power production to road and marine transport, such as in long and short haul
trucks and buses. Some conversions from the original compression ignition diesel engines to
dual fuel operation were made by manufacturers utilizing a double plunger system or two

Fig. 1. Longitudinal arrangement of the Ricardo E6-engine.

 G.H. Abd Alla et al. / Energy Conversion & Management 41 (2000) 559±572 561

pumps in the injection system of the engine to handle the small quantity of diesel fuel required
for ignition [6].
One of the main problems with dual fuel operation is that, at light load, dual fuel engines
usually exhibited a drop in eciency and power output with respect to diesel operation. The
emissions of unburned hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide under dual fuel operation were
higher in comparison to diesel operation [1,7]. Nielsen et al. in 1987 indicated the amount of
pilot fuel and the intake temperature necessary to avoid ignition failure at part load operation
[4]. Soliman and Isaid (1993) investigated the e€ect of using LPG or gasoline vapor as a
secondary fuel for a single cylinder diesel engine, on its performance and exhaust smoke level
[5]. They found that the addition of LPG or gasoline vapor, while reducing the liquid fuel at
constant speed, causes a sharp reduction in the smoke number. They con®rmed that the use of
gaseous fuel (LPG) by 30% reduced the smoke level by 80%. They also found that a better
improvement in smoke number is achieved by introducing LPG because gasoline vapor had a
better e€ect on the mechanical loading on engine components due to its lower e€ect on cylinder
pressure. In the present study, the e€ect of pilot fuel quantity on the performance of a single
cylinder, indirect injection diesel engine (Ricardo E6) fuelled with gaseous fuels is investigated.

2. Experimental

The Ricardo E6 engine used in the present work, is a single cylinder, four stroke, water
cooled engine having a bore of 75.2 mm (3.0 in.), a stroke of 111.1 mm (4.375 in.), and a
swept volume of 507 cm3 (31 in3). Two poppet valves are set vertically in the head and are
operated by an overhead cam shaft. The cylinder, cylinder head and the cam box are bolted
together forming an integral unit as shown in Fig. 1. By rotating a lever arm, the whole
cylinder assembly can be raised or lowered during running, to vary the compression ratio. A
Ricardo Comet MK V compression swirl combustion chamber is ®tted to the cylinder head.
The swirl chamber in the head has a top half of spherical form and the lower half is a

Table 1
General speci®cations of the Ricardo E6 engine

Item Speci®cation

Type Four stroke

Number of cylinders 1
Bore 76.2 mm (3 in.)
Stroke 111.1 mm (4.375 in.)
Sweept volume 0.507 l (31 in3)
Maximum speed 3000 r.p.m
Minimum speed 900 r.p.m
Maximum power 9 kw 4 Naturally aspirated
14 kw 4 (0.5 bar) supercharged
Maximum cylinder pressure 150 bar
Compression ratio 21.07
Injection timing 25±458 B.T.D.C
562 G.H. Abd Alla et al. / Energy Conversion & Management 41 (2000) 559±572

truncated cone which communicates with the cylinder by means of a narrow passage or throat.
The second part consists of special cavities cut into the crown of the piston. The lower half of
the combustion chamber containing the throat is thermally insulated from the rest of the
cylinder head. The cooling system of the Ricardo E6 engine is a pressurized closed circuit, and
it is ®lled with a mixture of demineralized water and commercial anti-freeze inhibitor. Two
thermocouples are used in the cooling system, one thermocouple is dedicated to the coolant
over temperature trip (engine shut o€) in the control console, while the other provides a signal
to the temperature indicator on the control console panel. The engine coolant temperature is
recommended by the manufacturer not to exceed 708C. The lubricating oil is contained in the
engine sump. The system includes two thermocouples similar to those of the coolant. The oil
pressure is limited to 2.0 bar by a relief valve mounted on the engine. The dynamometer used
with the engine is an electrical dc machine rated at 22 kW, 420 V. Load is measured using a
torque arm of 390 mm (mounted on the dynamometer frame) which operates on a strain gauge
load cell, the output from which provides a continuous display of torque (N/m) at the control

Fig. 2. Gas fuel measuring system.

 G.H. Abd Alla et al. / Energy Conversion & Management 41 (2000) 559±572 563

console. A tachogenerator mounted on the dynamometer shaft provides a speed signal to the
closed loop speed control system. Table 1 gives the general speci®cations of the Ricardo E6
engine. In the present work, two metering systems were used for measuring the ¯ow rate of
diesel fuel. The compu¯ow system was used with full diesel operation. For dual fuel operation,
however, the much lower ¯ow rates with their inherent errors led to the use of a high precision
thermal pulse ¯ow meter. The compu¯ow system is a multi-function microprocessor based fuel
measurement system commonly used with internal combustion engines. It measures the weight
of fuel consumed in a preset time, the time to consume a preset amount of fuel, the
instantaneous fuel ¯ow rate, the engine speed and the total engine revolutions. The major
feature of the compu¯ow meter is its analog outputs of all displayed parameters (0±5 V each).
The thermal pulse ¯ow meter is a microprocessor based ¯ow meter designed to measure liquid
¯ows from 0.02 to 100 ml/min. Instead of ori®ces or moving parts, a thermal pulse `time of
¯ight' technique is used. This method involves the use of thermistors to impart and detect a
heat pulse in a ¯ow cell. The display unit uses the following equation to calculate the ¯ow:
VC
mf ˆ …1†
t ÿ tC
where mf is the mass ¯ow rate, VC is a volume constant = 0.218601, t is the time, tC is a time
constant = 0.0127154.
The volume constant VC and the time constant tC are obtained from calibration of the ¯ow
cell.
The gas fuel measuring system in the present study, as shown in Fig. 2, consists of an ori®ce
meter, a piezoelectric pressure di€erential transducer and a digital pressure meter (DPM) with
power supply. The crystals of the pressure di€erential transducer feel the pressure di€erence

Fig. 3. Aclock viscous ¯ow air meter.

564 G.H. Abd Alla et al. / Energy Conversion & Management 41 (2000) 559±572

and send a current signal (4±20 mA) corresponding to the driving pressure di€erence. In
addition to acting as a 24 V dc power supply to the pressure transducer (PT), the digital
pressure meter (DPM) converts the output current signal from the PT (4±20 mA) into a
readable digital count. Furthermore, the DPM gives an analog output signal which is linearly
proportional to the digital count (1 mV per count) of the pressure drop.
The Ricardo E6 engine test bed is equipped with a viscous ¯ow air meter as shown in Fig. 3.
The air enters through a ®lter and then passes through the viscous element, which is made of
alternate layers of ¯at corrugated strip metal wound upon a core. The highly viscous element
damps the pulsations of the ¯ow on the engine side and produces an average ¯ow on the ®lter
side. Thus, there is no need to use an air damper to damp the air pulsation, unlike common
meters (ori®ce/venturi). The pressure drop across the element is linearly proportional to the
average air ¯ow rate. The exhaust gas analysis system used in the present work has been

Fig. 4. General connections between the mMAC system and the measuring instruments.
 G.H. Abd Alla et al. / Energy Conversion & Management 41 (2000) 559±572 565

designed for determination of the gaseous emission levels in automotive engines using medium
molecular weight liquid fuels with air fuel ratios in the range of 7:1 to 70:1 (most gasoline and
diesel engines). It is designed to sample from diluted or undiluted exhaust gas streams
continuously, via a heated sample line. The measured pollutants, along with their measuring
techniques, are given below:
1. Total Hydrocarbons (THC) are analyzed by Heated Flame Ionization Detector (HFID).
2. NO/NOx is analyzed by a Heated Chemiluminescent Analyzer (HCLA).
3. CO and CO2 are measured by a Non-Dispersive Infrared method (NDIF).
4. O2 is measured by a paramagnetic method.
In the present study, a data acquisition system (DAS) is employed to collect the important
performance parameters of the Ricardo E6 engine using a specially developed software (mMAC
BASIC). The measured parameters include temperatures (air, fuel, oil, exhaust, coolant in and
coolant out), torque and engine speed which are taken from the Ricardo engine control
console. Moreover, concentrations of CO, CO2, O2, NOx and UHC in the exhaust gases are
transferred from the gas analysis system to the DAS. Furthermore, fuel ¯ow rates taken from
the compu¯ow system and the thermal pulse system, and gas fuel pressure drop taken from the
pressure transducer are hooked to the DAS. Fig. 4 shows the general connections between the
mother board of the DAS (mMAC) system and the measuring instruments with their type and
range of output signals.

3. Testing procedure

The experimental work in this study starts with basic engine performance using dual fuel
(pilot and gaseous fuel). The results obtained will be used as a basis for comparison with those
obtained from studying the e€ects of pilot fuel injection timing. The engine will be tested using
methane or propane as the main fuel, while diesel fuel will be used as the pilot fuel. Three
values of pilot fuel quantities, 0.15, 0.20 and 0.25 kg/h, are used in the present tests.

4. Results and discussion

In dual fuel operation, the pilot fuel is normally introduced into the cylinder charge through
the use of the conventional diesel injection system. The quantity of pilot fuel injected is often
very small. Occasionally, it may be so small that it is outside the operational range of the
injector under full diesel operation. Moreover, conventional engines are operated with ®xed
injection timing. Accordingly, the options available to improve light load performance with
small pilot quantities without changes to the fuel injection system tend to be limited. A notable
factor is to ensure that the injector does not get overheated when small pilot fuel quantities are
injected, while signi®cant energy release through gas combustion is proceeding within the
cylinder. There is also a need to ensure that the fuel injection system is well matched to the
engine when operating as a diesel engine even at light load.
The pilot fuel quantity is one of the most important variables that can have a controlling
566 G.H. Abd Alla et al. / Energy Conversion & Management 41 (2000) 559±572

in¯uence on the performance and emissions of dual fuel engines, especially at light loads. It is
known that most diesel fuel injection systems experience poor atomization and combustion
when the amount of fuel injected per cycle is reduced below 5±10% of the maximum design
level. The minimum amount of pilot fuel quantity in the present work was 0.15 kg/h in order
to keep continuous combustion of the gaseous fuel. This sets an e€ective lower limit to the
quantity of pilot fuel injected. Fig. 5 shows that at very light loads with a small pilot fuel
quantity, the concentrations of unburned hydrocarbons measured were relatively high. This is
because, in an excessively lean mixture, the ¯ame originating from the pilot ignition (if there is
any) cannot propagate throughout the whole combustion chamber; only partial oxidation
occurs, and thus unburned hydrocarbon emissions as well as CO emissions are relatively
higher, as shown in Fig. 6. With increasing pilot fuel quantity, the volume of the charge that is
a€ected by the combustion of the pilot fuel envelope will increase thus increasing the burned
fraction of the gaseous fuel and, accordingly, decreasing the pollutants emitted in the exhaust.
A larger pilot fuel quantity provides, in principle, a large pilot fuel envelope and a greater
multitude of ignition centers with larger reaction zones within the overall, very lean, gaseous
fuel±air mixture. Moreover, the ¯ame propagation path from each ignition center within the
charge becomes relatively shorter, and thus, combustion is better. Furthermore, for low load
involving very lean gaseous fuel±air mixtures, the employment of a large pilot fuel quantity
improves the injection characteristics which leads to stable combustion of the pilot fuel that
contributes to combustion of the gaseous fuel without hunting. At higher loads, when the
gaseous fuel concentration in the air charge is above the lean combustion limit, the ¯ame is
able to propagate through most of the combustion chamber unaided, and varying the pilot fuel

Fig. 5. Variations of experimental results of unburned hydrocarbon concentration with total equivalence ratio for
di€erent values of pilot fuel quantities (main fuel: methane).
 G.H. Abd Alla et al. / Energy Conversion & Management 41 (2000) 559±572 567

Fig. 6. Variations of experimental results of carbon monoxide concentration with total equivalence ratio for
di€erent values of pilot fuel quantities (main fuel: methane).

Fig. 7. Variations of experimental results of unburned hydrocarbon concentration with total equivalence ratio for
di€erent values of pilot fuel quantities (main fuel: propane).
568 G.H. Abd Alla et al. / Energy Conversion & Management 41 (2000) 559±572

quantity has little e€ect. The change in oxidation reactions from unsuccessful to successful
¯ame propagation reduces the hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide emissions slightly as shown
in Figs. 7 and 8. According to the mechanism of oxidation of nitrogen during combustion,
atoms of oxygen, dissociating at high temperatures, start the chain reaction of oxidation of
nitrogen to NO and atomic nitrogen. The atomic nitrogen further combines with oxygen to
produce nitrogen oxides. Therefore, the local concentrations of oxygen and nitrogen atoms,
which are functions of local temperature and availability of oxygen molecules, as well as the
time available for the oxygen±nitrogen reactions to proceed to signi®cant levels of completion,
are the parameters that determine the reaction kinetics. In dual fuel engines, the e€ective size
of the combustion zone, which relates to the size of the pilot fuel zone, is another important
factor that determines the quantity of nitrogen oxides produced. On this basis, and for the
same total equivalence ratio, increasing the pilot fuel quantity increases the charge temperature
which tends to increase the production of NOx, as shown in Fig. 9. For relatively high loads,
the combustion of gaseous fuel is more complete and less a€ected by the pilot fuel quantity,
and thus, the pilot fuel quantity has a milder e€ect. Similarly, for a given pilot fuel quantity
when higher gaseous fuel concentrations in the cylinder charge are employed, the signi®cant
increases in the size of the combustion zone lead to correspondingly increased higher
production of NOx. The typical experimental results of Fig. 10 con®rm such explanation by
showing that the production of nitrogen oxides is in¯uenced markedly by both the quantity of
the pilot fuel employed and the overall equivalence ratio. The use of large pilot fuel quantities
and high charge equivalence ratios results in a signi®cant increase in the production of nitrogen
oxides. Variations of power output with changes in the quantity of the pilot fuel are shown in
Figs. 11 and 12. These ®gures indicate that the employment of a large pilot fuel quantity can

Fig. 8. Variations of experimental results of carbon monoxide concentration with total equivalence ratio for
di€erent values of pilot fuel quantities (main fuel: propane).
 G.H. Abd Alla et al. / Energy Conversion & Management 41 (2000) 559±572 569

Fig. 9. Variations of experimental results of NOx with total equivalence ratio for di€erent values of pilot fuel
quantities (main fuel: methane).

Fig. 10. Variations of experiemental results of NOx with total equivalence ratio for di€erent values of pilot fuel
quantities (main fuel: propane).
570 G.H. Abd Alla et al. / Energy Conversion & Management 41 (2000) 559±572

Fig. 11. Variations of experimental results of brake power with total equivalence ratio for di€erent values of pilot
fuel quantities (main fuel: methane).

Fig. 12. Variations of experimental results of brake power with total equivalence ratio for di€erent values of pilot
fuel quantities (main fuel: propane).
 G.H. Abd Alla et al. / Energy Conversion & Management 41 (2000) 559±572 571

Fig. 13. E€ect of pilot fuel ¯ow rate on the knocking torque.

produce higher power output. As discussed earlier, the increase of pilot fuel quantity leads to
successful ¯ame propagation and, consequently, leads to increasing the output power. Fig. 13
shows the e€ect of pilot fuel ¯ow rate on the knocking torque for both fuels, methane and
propane. It can be seen that the increase of pilot fuel quantity leads to the knocking early. This

Fig. 14. Variations of thermal eciency with total equivalence ratio with di€erent values of pilot fuel quantities.
572 G.H. Abd Alla et al. / Energy Conversion & Management 41 (2000) 559±572

indicates that using a greater pilot fuel quantity to enhance the combustion process at low
loads, will lead to increasing the tendency to knock at high loads. Fig. 14 shows comparisons
between the experimental results of the thermal eciencies for methane and propane. It can be
seen that the thermal eciency for methane is greater than that for propane at low loads. This
is due to the higher ignition delay of propane at low loads.

5. Conclusions

1. An improvement in thermal eciency is achieved by increasing the amount of pilot fuel,

because of the corresponding high pressure and temperature while the combustion duration
increased.
2. The increase in NOx emissions with increasing amount of pilot fuel was attributed to
increases in the maximum temperature of the charge.
3. The reduction in carbon monoxide and unburned hydrocarbon emissions were due to
general improvement in the combustion process.
4. Increasing the amount of pilot fuel at high loads led to early knocking. It is ,therefore,
concluded that increasing the amount of pilot fuel is not e€ective in dual fuel operation at
high loads.

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