Experimental Investigation of Performance of Acetylene Fuel Based Diesel Engine

Abstract

People have been working seriously in the search for best alternative fuels to safeguard the environment ever since the transportation and industrial fields started growing widely. Among such alternatives acetylene has proved to be a better fuel for internal combustion engines due to its low cost, simplicity in manufacturing and excellent combustion characteristics. Moreover it has less carbon content compared to other fuels, which plays a central role in environmental degradation. However the fuel must be safe and environmentally friendly and also readily usable in existing engines without any significant design modifications. Acetylene is produced in parallel to the engine operation taking proper care to avoid back firing. We propose in the present study that acetylene be the safe and appropriate fuel for a compression ignition engine. Diesel engine is selected with a subsidiary mixing box for a homogeneous mixture of air and acetylene. The experiments are conducted with fixed acetylene flow rates from 0.1Lit/min to 5Lit/min with an increase of 0.5Lit/min in every step. The engine is tested at various loads, keeping track of combustion performance to find out the optimum fuel flow rates and also to have reduced emissions. The results show that the performance of the Acetylene enriched engine is nearer to the pure diesel engine with reduced emissions. It is concluded that acetylene could be the better alternative fuel without compromising brake thermal efficiency and safe operation with a moderate increment of smoke and NOx.