PERFORMANCE AND EMISSION CHARACTERISTICS OF A CI ENGINE OPERATED ON VEGETABLE OILS AS ALTERNATIVE FUELS

An experimental analysis is done on four stroke single cylinder constant speed, water cooled diesel engine which is interfaced with Engine soft software. Performance and emission characteristics are evaluated for three non-edible vegetable oils viz. thumba, jojoba, neem and jojoba methyl ester to study the effect of injection pressures viz. 205, 220, 240 and 260 bar with variation in injection timing at 23°bTDC and 28°bTDC. The performance of jojoba methyl ester improved with increase in injection pressures, maximum brake thermal efficiency of 29.72% is obtained with lower emissions compared to other vegetable oils; the reason might be low viscosity and better combustion. Further investigations were carried out with new lubricant SAE 5W-30; which improved the performance of CI engine by 1.59%. All the above investigations were fruitful and these results are expected to lead to a substantial contribution to the development of a viable vegetable oil engine.