Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and Diesel, Dual Fuel Implementation on a Common Rail Diesel Engine

Abstract

Research on Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) use for automotive application is stemmed from the lower cost of the fuel and also from its lower emission potential. This paper details the experimental implementation of LPG fuel onto a Peugeot four cylinder common rail diesel engine. This diesel engine was already electronically controlled with an in-house Engine Control Unit (ECU) already reported in earlier IEEE papers. The electronic and software implementation performed to achieve Dual Fuel operation is detailed, i.e. LPG addition in gaseous state in the inlet manifold in conjunction with Diesel Injection directly into the cylinder. The Diesel Injection is used as the ignition source and thus is required throughout the engine operation, i.e. from idle to full load. LPG addition was utilized from 20% load upwards. The experimental setup used the Diesel ECU already reported and made use of additional electronic circuitry and LabVIEW to control the low impedance LPG injectors. The additional electronic circuitry and LabVIEW control are therefore the main contribution presented in this paper.