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Effect of biofuels on the performance and

emission characteristics of VCR engines - A
review

DATASET · MARCH 2014

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Ugandhar Puli
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Retrieved on: 30 October 2015
 U. RAVINDRANATH1*, UGANDHAR PULI 2 AND M. V. JAGANNADHA RAJU3
1
Mechanical Engineering Section, Government Polytechnic, Visakhapatnam
2
Mechanical Engineering Section, MRAGR Government Polytechnic, Vizianagaram
3
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Andhra University College of Engineering, Visakhapatnam
ABSTRACT
The high energy demand in the industrial world as well
as in the domestic sector and pollution problems caused
due to the widespread use of fossil fuels make it
increasingly necessary to develop the renewable energy
sources with lesser environmental impact than the
conventional one. This has inspired curiosity in alternative
sources for petroleum based fuels. As an alternative fuels,
the vegetable oils and alcohols have received great
attention because these are biodegradable and renewable.
This paper presents a review on the effect of biofuels on
the performance, emission and combustion characteristics
of VCR engines. Keywords: IC E ngines, Variable
compression ratio engines (VCR) and Biofuels.
Keywords: Variable compression ratio engines (VCR),
Biofuels
INTRODUCTION
Internal Combustion engines are the most efficient
of all existing engines, making them one of the
major contenders as a power source in the 21st
century. Improving internal combustion (IC) engine
efficiency is a prime concern today. A lot of
engineering research has been done to improve the
thermal efficiency of the IC engines, so as to get
more work from the same amount of fuel burnt. Of
the energy present in the combustion chamber only
a portion gets converted to useful output power.
Most of the energy produced by these engines is
wasted as heat. In addition to friction losses and
losses to the exhaust, there are other operating
performance parameters that affect the thermal
efficiency. These include the fuel lower calorific
value, compression ratio, and ratio of specific heats.
Compression ratio is the ratio of the total
volume of the combustion chamber when the piston
is at the bottom dead centre to the total volume of
the combustion chamber when piston is at the top
dead centre. Theoretically, increasing the
compression ratio of an engine can improve the
Corresponding author: ravindranath.u@gmail.com
thermal efficiency of the engine by producing more
power output. The ideal theoretical cycle, the Otto
cycle, upon which spark ignition (SI) engines are
based, has a thermal efficiency, which increases
with compression ratio.
The compression ratio of an internal-
combustion engine or external combustion engine
is a value that represents the ratio of the volume of
its combustion chamber from its largest capacity to
its smallest capacity. A high compression ratio is
desirable because it allows an engine to extract more
mechanical energy from a given mass of air-fuel
mixture due to its higher thermal efficiency. This
occurs because internal combustion engines are heat
engines, and higher efficiency is created because
higher compression ratios permit the same
combustion temperature to be reached with less fuel,
while giving a longer expansion cycle, creating more
mechanical power output and lowering the exhaust
temperature paucity. It is a fundamental specification
for many common combustion engines.
Aina et al. [1] conducted experiments to study
the effect of compression ratio on Ricardo variable
compression ratio spark ignition engines to evaluate
the performance characteristics at CR of 5 to 9
within the speed range of 1100 to 1600 rpm. They
found that as the compression ratio increases, the
actual fuel consumption decreases averagely by
7.75%, brake thermal efficiency improves by 8.49
% and brake power also improves by 1.34%. The
maximum compression ratio corresponding to
maximum brake power, brake thermal efficiency,
brake mean effective pressure and lowest specific
fuel consumption is 9. When the theoretical values
were compared with experimental values, the small
values of the percentage errors between the
theoretical and experimental values show that there
is agreement between the theoretical and
experimental performance characteristics of the
engine.
 170 U. Ravindranath, Ugandhar Puli and M. V. Jagannadha Raju
Ravi Kumar et al. [2] conducted an experimental
study on single cylinder variable compression
diesel engine with different compression ratios,
percentages of EGR and loads to estimate
performance, combustion and emis sion
characteristics of the engine. They found that with
increase in compression ratio the brake thermal
efficiency increases and specific fuel consumption
decreases. It was observed that with raise in % of
EGR the percentage increase in brake thermal was
up to 13.5%. The combustion duration was
decreases by 2-30 with increase in compression ratio
due to less ignition delay. It was found that with
raise in % EGR the NOx emissions was gradually
decreases by 11% to 85% at different compression
ratios due to less flame temperatures and low
oxygen content in the combustion chamber. It was
also found that maximum amount of charge was
burnt in the first 200 of crank angle rotation during
combustion stage. The smoke opacity is gradually
decreases at all compression ratios. The decrease
in percentage varies from 17% to 4% from no load
to full load.
Experimental inves tigations of Syed
Yousufuddin et al [3] on a hydrogen – ethanol
fuelled spark ignition engine have shown that at
an equivalence ratio of 1.0 the percentage reduction
in HC and CO emission when the compression ratio
was increased from 7:1 to 11:1 was around 22.4%
and 32.58% respectively whereas NOx emission was
increased by 27.8%. They concluded that
improvement of 80% hydrogen enrichment of
ethanol is the reason for reduction of the HC and
CO emissions with a slight increase in NOx
emissions, while increasing the higher useful
compression ratio of a hydrogen supplemented fuel
engine. They found that as the compression ratio
increased, the peak NOx emission occurred at lower
equivalence ratios and therefore leaner mixtures.
Anand et al [4] evaluated the performance of
VCR diesel engine fuelled with various blends of
diesel and methyl ester of cottonseed oil in four
different compositions varying from 5% to 20% in
steps of 5%. They found that highest brake thermal
efficiency and lowest specific fuel consumption
were observed for 5% biodiesel blend for
compression ratio of 15 and 17 and 20% biodiesel
blend for compression ratio of 19. The 20% biodiesel
blend at a compression ratio of 17 had maximum
nitric oxide emission as 205 ppm, while it was 155
ppm for diesel. Substantial reduction in Carbon
monoxide emissions and smoke in the full range of
compression ratio and loads was observed.
Improved heat release characteristics were observed
for the prepared biodiesels. Their results reveal that
the biodiesels can be used safely without any
modification to the engine.
Experimental studies of Gnanamoorthi and
Devaradjaneb [5] on a single cylinder four stroke
diesel engine using ethanol blended in different
ratios with diesel fuel have shown that the addition
of ethanol caused an increase in the performance
which includes improved Brake thermal efficiency
by 8% for 10% Ethanol addition and only 2%
increase on further Ethanol addition with an added
advantage of reduced Specific fuel consumption
and the increase of ethanol, ignition\retards and
combustion duration shorten, which results in rapid
combustion. Ethanol heat release rate increases with
increasing ethanol concentration. Considering
emissions, CO, HC and Smoke are increased at
lower loads but reduced at higher loads as ethanol
which is an oxygenated fuel provides free oxygen
to assist combustion. The NOx is reduced by 8%
with 10% of ethanol blend.
Kumarasamy et al [6], in their experimental
study on a Single cylinder four stroke CI engine
loaded with electrical dynamometer fuelled with
different blends of ethanol, butanol and diesel at
different compositions found that there was
decrease in emission level for all the different blends
from fewer to moderate level. Finally, after
observing the results of HC, CO, NOx level
emissions it was concluded that on the basis of
emission characteristics result obtained EB10 (80%
diesel, 10% ethanol and butanol each ) was found
to be optimum.
Experimental work has been carried out by
Nagarhalli and Nandedkar [7] to analyze the
emission and performance characteristics of a single
cylinder 3.67 kW, compression ignition engine
fuelled with mineral diesel and diesel Karanja
biodiesel blends at fuel injection pressures of 190
bar, 200 bar and 210 bar. The brake thermal
efficiency, brake specific energy consumption
(BSEC) were calculated and the emissions measured
were carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2),
hydrocarbon (HC), and oxides of nitrogen (NOx).
The results of experimental investigation with
biodiesel blends are compared with that of baseline
diesel. The results indicate that the CO emissions
were almost constant, HC emissions decreased by
upto 25% for B40, NOx emissions decreased by 30
to 39% for biodiesel blends. The efficiency decreased
 Effect of Biofuels on the Performance and Emission Characteristics of VCR Engines – A Review
slightly for blends in comparison with diesel. The
BSEC was slightly more for B20 and B40. The results
of the investigation indicate that biodiesel can be
used as an alternative to diesel in a compression
ignition engine without any engine modifications.
The performance of the engine improved at a
biodiesel blend of 40% and an injection pressure of
200. The use of locally available renewable fuel
helps in saving vital foreign exchange and self
reliant.
CONCLUSIONS
Extensive literature indicates that there is ample of
scope for under taking experiments on I.C engines
with mixing of different blends of bio fuels at
varying compression ratios to study the
performance parameters as well as emission
characteristics.
REFERENCES
[1] Influence of compression ratio on the performance
characteristics of a spark ignition engine by Aina T.,
Folayan C. O. and Pam G. Y., Advances in Applied
Science Research, 3 (4), 1915-1922, 2012.
171
[2] Effects of Compression Ratio and EGR on Performance,
Combustion and Emissions of Di Injection Diesel Engine
by N. Ravi Kumar*, Y. M. C. Sekhar, and S. Adinarayana,
International Journal of Applied Science and Engineering,
11, 1: 41-49, 2013.
[3] Effect of Compression Ratio and Equivalence Ratio on
the Emission Characteristics of a Hydrogen-Ethanol
Fuelled Spark Ignition Engine by Syed Yousufuddin, K.
Venkateswarlu and G. R. K Sastry, International Journal
of Advanced Science and Technology Vol. 40, 2012.
[4] The performance and emissions of a variable compression
ratio diesel engine fuelled with bio-diesel from cotton
seed oil by R. Anand, G. R. Kannan, K. Rajasekhar Reddy
and S. Velmathi, ARPN Journal of Engineering and
Applied Sciences, VOL. 4, NO. 9, 2009.
[5] Effect of Diesel-Ethanol Blends on Performance,
Combustion and Exhaust Emission of a Diesel Engine by
V.Gnanamoorthi and G. Devaradjane, International
Journal of Current Engineering and Technology, Vol.3,
No.1, 2013.
[6] Effect of Different Types of Alternative Fuel Type on Air
Pollution by Chendil Velan Kumarasamy, Saraju Nandi,
R K Tyagi, Journal of Environmental Science, Computer
Science and Engineering & Technology Vol.2.No.3, 534-
540, 2013.
[7] Effect of injection pressure on emission and performance
characteristics of Karanja biodiesel and its blends in C.I.
Engine by Nagarhalli.M.V and Nandedkar.V.M,
International Journal of Applied Engineering Research,
Volume 1, No 4, 2011.