Basics of Diesel Engines and Diesel Fuels

Publisher Summary The diesel engine has been the engine of choice for heavy-duty applications in agriculture, construction, industrial, and on-highway transport for more than 50 years. Its early popularity could be attributed to its ability to use the portion of the petroleum crude oil that had previously been considered a waste product from the refining of gasoline. Later, the diesel's durability, high torque capacity, and fuel efficiency ensured its role in the most demanding applications. Although diesel engines have not been widely used in passenger cars in the United States ( 50% of the total market. In the United States, on-highway diesel engines now consume greater than 40 billion gallons of diesel fuel per year and virtually all of this is in trucks. At the present time, only a small fraction of this fuel is biodiesel. However, as petroleum becomes more expensive to locate and extract and concerns about fuel security and global warming increase, biodiesel is likely to emerge as one of several potential alternative diesel fuels. To understand the requirements of a diesel fuel and how biodiesel can be considered a desirable substitute, it is important to understand the basic operating principles of the diesel engine. This chapter describes these principles, particularly in light of the fuel used and the ways in which biodiesel provides advantages over conventional petroleum-based fuels.