INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINES

ME-215

CHAP. 06 FUELS

Dr.-Ing. Usman Allauddin,

Assistant Professor, Mechanical Department,
Director NED-DICE Energy Innovation Centre,
NED University of Engineering & Technology, Karachi.

EMAIL: usman.allauddin@neduet.edu.pk
TEL: +92 21 99261261-8 Ext: 2315
MOBILE #: +92-345-2127526
Office: NED-DICE Energy Innovation Centre
 LECTURE LEARNING OUTCOMES

 Why it is important to study types of fuels and their

characteristics?
 Types of fuels
 Chemical structure of Petroleum
 Important qualities of SI engine fuels
 Important qualities of CI engine fuels
 Rating of SI engine fuels
 Rating of CI engine fuels
 Calorific value of fuel

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 WHY IT IS IMPORTANT TO STUDY TYPES OF FUELS
AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS
 The study of fuels for IC engines has
been carried out since these engines
came into existence.
 Engine converts heat energy (obtained
from the chemical combination of the fuel
with the oxygen) into mechanical energy.
 Since the heat energy is derived from the
fuel, a fundamental knowledge of types of
fuels and their characteristics is essential
in order to understand the combustion
phenomena.
 The characteristics of the fuel used have
considerable influence on the design,
efficiency, output and particularly, the
reliability and durability of an engine.
 Fuel characteristics also play vital role in
atmospheric pollution caused by the
engine in automobiles.

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 TYPES OF FUELS

Fuels
Solid Liquid Gas

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 SOLID FUELS
 Major Problems:
 Handling of Fuel
 Disposing off the solid residue or
ash after combustion

 At initial stages, solid fuels such as finely

powdered coal was attempted.
 Compared to gaseous and liquid fuels,
solid fuels are quite difficult to handle and
storage.
 Feeding are quite cumbersome.
 Thus, the fuels in solid form have become
unsuitable to be used in IC engines
 Attempts are being made to generate
gaseous and liquid fuels from charcoal for
use in SI engines

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 LIQUID FUELS
 In most of the modern internal combustion engines, liquid fuels
(derivatives of liquid petroleum) are being used.
 Principal commercial types of liquid fuels are benzyl, alcohol and
petroleum products.
 However, petroleum products forms the main fuels for IC engines as on
today.

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 GASEOUS FUELS
 Gaseous fuels are Ideal, because
being gaseous, they mix more
homogenously with air and eliminate
the distribution and starting problems
that are encountered with liquid fuels.
 However, storage and handling
problems restrict their use in
automobiles because of higher
specific volumes.
 Commonly used for stationary power
plants located near the source of
availability of the fuel.
 Some of the gaseous fuels (e.g. LPG)
can be liquified under pressure for
reducing the volume but this
arrangement is very expensive as well
as risky.

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 CHEMICAL STRUCTURE OF PETROLEUM

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 CHEMICAL STRUCTURE OF PETROLEUM

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 IMPORTANT QUALITIES OF SI ENGINE FUELS
1. Volatility: In simple words is evaporation of liquid at room
temperature. It is one of the main characteristics of gasoline which
determines its suitability for use in an SI engine. Since gasoline is a
mixture of different hydrocarbons, volatility depends on the fractional
composition of the fuel.

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 IMPORTANT QUALITIES OF SI ENGINE FUELS
2. Starting & Warm up:
A certain part of gasoline should vaporize at the room temperature for
easy starting of the engine. Hence, the portion of the distillation curve
between about 0 to 10% boiled off have relatively low boiling
temperatures. As the engine warms up, the temperature will gradually
increase to the operating temperature. Low distillation temperatures
are desirable throughout the range of the distillation curve for best
warm-up.

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 IMPORTANT QUALITIES OF SI ENGINE FUELS
3. Operating range performance:
In order to obtain good vaporization of the gasoline, low distillation
temperature are preferable in the engine operating range. Better
vaporization tends to produce both more uniform distribution of fuel to
the cylinder as well as better acceleration characteristics by reducing
the quantity of liquid droplets in the intake manifold.

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 IMPORTANT QUALITIES OF SI ENGINE FUELS
4. Crankcase Dilution:
Liquid fuel in the cylinder causes loss of lubricating oil (by washing
away oil from cylinder walls) which deteriorates the quality of
lubrication and tends to cause damage to the engine through
increased friction. Liquid gasoline may also dilute the lubricating oil
and weaken the oil film between rubbing surfaces. To prevent these
possibilities, the upper portion of the distillation curve should exhibit
sufficiently low distillation temperatures to insure all gasoline in the
cylinder is vaporized by the time the combustion starts.

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 IMPORTANT QUALITIES OF SI ENGINE FUELS
5. Vapor Lock Characteristics:
High rate of vaporization of gasoline can upset the carburetor
metering or even stop the fuel flow to the engine by setting up a
vapor lock in the fuel passages. This characteristic, demands the
presence of high boiling temperature. Since this requirement is not
consistent with the other requirements , a compromise must be made
for desired distillation temperature.

6. Antiknock Quality:
Abnormal burning or detonation in an SI engine combustion chamber
causes a very high rate of energy release, excessive temperature
and pressure inside the cylinder adversely affects its thermal
efficiency. Therefore, the characteristics of the fuel used should be
such that it resists the tendency to produce detonation and this
property is called antiknock property.

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 IMPORTANT QUALITIES OF SI ENGINE FUELS
6. Gum Deposits:
Reactive hydrocarbons and impurities in the fuel have a tendency to oxidize
upon storage and form liquid and solid gummy substances.
The amount of gum increases with increased concentrations of oxygen, with
rise in temperature, with exposure to sunlight and also on contact with metals.
A gasoline with high gum content will cause operating difficulties such as
sticking valves, piston rings carbon deposits, gum deposits in manifold,
clogging of carburetor jets and enlarging of the valve stems, cylinders and
pistons.
Gasoline specifications therefore limit both the gum content of the fuel and its
tendency to form gum during storage.

7. Sulphur Content:
Sulphur is a corrosive element of the fuel that can corrode fuel lines,
carburetors and injection pumps and it will unite with oxygen to form Sulphur
dioxide that, in presence of water at low temperatures, may form Sulphurous
acid.
Since Sulphur has a low ignition temperature, the presence of Sulphur can
reduce the self ignition temperature, then promoting knock in the SI engine.

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 IMPORTANT QUALITIES OF CI ENGINE FUELS
1. Knock Characteristics:
Knock in the CI engine occurs because of an ignition lag in the
combustion of the fuel between the time of injection and the time of
actual burning.
As the ignition lag increases, the amount of fuel accumulated in the
combustion chamber increases and when combustion actually takes
place, abnormal amount of energy is suddenly released causing an
excessive rate of pressure rise which results in an audible knock.
Hence, a good CI engine fuel should have a short ignition lag and will
ignite more readily.
Furthermore, ignition lag affects the starting, warm up and leads to
production of exhaust smoke in CI engines.
In general, the best fuel will have a cetane rating (short ignition lag)
sufficiently high to avoid objectionable knock.

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 IMPORTANT QUALITIES OF CI ENGINE FUELS
2. Volatility:
The fuel should be sufficiently volatile in the operating range of
temperature to produce good mixing and combustion.

3. Starting Characteristics:
The fuel should help in starting the engine easily. This requirement
demands high enough volatility to form a combustible mixture readily
and a high cetane rating in order that the self-ignition temperature is
low.

4. Smoking and Odour:

The fuel should not promote either smoke or odour in the engine
exhaust. Good volatility is the first pre-requisite to ensure good
mixing and therefore complete combustion.

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 IMPORTANT QUALITIES OF CI ENGINE FUELS
5. Viscosity:
CI engine fuels should be able to flow through the fuel system and the
strainers under the lowest operating temperatures to which the engine
is subjected.

6. Corrosion and Wear:

The fuel should not cause corrosion and wear of the engine
components before or after combustion. These requirements are
directly related to Sulphur, ash and residue in the fuel.

7. Handling Ease:
The fuel should be a liquid that will readily flow under all conditions
that are encountered in actual use. This requirement is measured by
the pour point and the viscosity of the fuel. The fuel should also have
a high flash point and a high fire point.

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 RATING OF SI ENGINE FUELS
Resistance to knocking is an extremely important characteristic of
fuel for SI engines. Octane Number measures the antiknock value of
the SI engine fuel.
The SI engine fuels differ widely in their ability to resist knocking
depending on their chemical composition.
The other operating parameters such as fuel-air ratio, ignition
timing, dilution, engine speed, shape of the combustion chamber,
ambient conditions, compression ration, engine cooling, etc., also
affect the knocking in SI engines.
A satisfactory rating method for comparing the antiknock qualities of
the various fuels has been established.
In order to determine the antiknock resistance characteristics of the
fuel, the engine and its operating variables must be fixed at standard
values.
The knock rating of an SI engine fuel is found by comparing fuel with
primary reference fuels under prescribed conditions.

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 RATING OF SI ENGINE FUELS
According to a standard practice, the antiknock value of an SI
engine fuel is determined by its antiknock property with a mixture of
two reference fuels, iso-octane (C8 H18 ) and normal heptane (C7 H16).
Iso-octane chemically being a very good antiknock fuel, is arbitrary
assigned a rating of 100 octane number.
Normal heptane has a very poor antiknock qualities and is given a
rating of 0 octane number.

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 RATING OF SI ENGINE FUELS
The OCTANE NUMBER of a fuel is defined as :
“The percentage, by volume, of iso-octane in a mixture of iso-octane
and normal heptane, which exactly matches the knocking intensity of
the fuel in a standard engine under a set of standard operating
conditions.”
Example:
Consider a fuel that consists of a mixture of 80% iso-octane and
20% of heptane. The octane number rating of this mixture is 80.

The addition of certain compounds (e.g. tetraethyl lead) to iso-

octane produces fuels of greater antiknock quality (above 100
octane number).
Octane number at higher range or octane scale will produce greater
antiknock effect than the same unit at the lower end of the scale.

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 RATING OF CI ENGINE FUELS
Knocking in CI engine is due to sudden ignition and abnormally
rapid combustion of accumulated fuel in combustion chamber.
This is referred to as ignition lag. Generally measured in terms of
cetane number.
Therefore, the knock rating of a diesel fuel is found by comparing
fuel with primary reference fuels under prescribed conditions.
The reference fuels are normal cetane (C16 H34 ) which is arbitrary
assigned a cetane number 100 and alpha methyl naphthalene
(C11 H10), with an assigned cetane number of 0.

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 RATING OF CI ENGINE FUELS
The CETANE NUMBER of a fuel is defined as :
“The percentage, by volume, of normal cetane in a
mixture of normal cetane and -methyl naphthalene
which has the same ignition characteristics (ignition
delay) as the test fuel when combustion is carried out
in a standard engine under a set of standard
operating conditions.”
Since ignition delay is the primary factor in
controlling the initial autoignition in the CI engine,
it is reasonable to conclude that knock should be
directly related to the ignition delay of the fuel.
Knock resistance property of diesel oil can be
improved by adding small quantities of compounds
like amyl nitrate (C₅H₁₁ONO), ethyl nitrate or ether.

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 HIGH AND LOW CALORIFIC VALUE OF FUELS
Calorific value of a fuel is the thermal energy
released per unit quantity of the fuel when the
fuel is burned completely and the products of
combustion are cooled back to the initial
temperature.
High Calorific Value HCV:

Low Calorific Value LCV:

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 HOME WORK
 Search for the examples of solid, liquid and gaseous fuels (10
each)
 Make a comparison between knocking of SI and CI engine.
 Study the petrol refining process.
 Make a cost per unit comparison of SI and CI engine fuels.
 Tabulate the values of volatility, ignition temperature, sulphur
content, Octane number of Petrol.
 Tabulate the values of volatility, ignition temperature, sulphur
content, Cetane number of Diesel.

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 Thank you!!

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