A Simulation Model to Predict the Performance of Ethanol- Gasoline Blend (E15) in a Spark Ignition Engine

Authors

  • Tamiru Tesfaye Gemechu
  • Ramesh Babu Nallamothu

Abstract

Usage of biofuels like bio-ethanol as a fuel in IC Engines is becoming prominent day by day due to their positive characteristics like biodegradability, nonpolluting, renewability, homegrown etc. Conducting experiments on real engine to establish the suitability of biofuels to IC Engines is very time consuming and expensive. Computer based simulation helps in addressing these problems. In this work an attempt is made to simulate performance and emission of SI engine using a computer program developAed with C++. For this simulation SI Engine fueled with gasoline-ethanol blend (E15) was used.     The performance parameters such as brake power, brake torque, thermal efficiency, break mean effective pressure, combustion efficiency, brake specific fuel consumption and emissions were analyzed. From the analysis, it was found that the brake power and torque for E15 is increased by 1.6% compared to E0. The fuel consumption decreased by 2.4%, 4.35% and 3.15% at lower speed, maximum power and maximum speed respectively for E15 compared to E0. This program is versatile and can be used for all types of engines and any type of blend proportion. Result indicated that the output parameters are all higher for E15 compared with E0. The molar fraction discharge of CO2, CO and water vapor is less for E15 than E0 but molar fraction of N2 is higher for E15 than E0. Experiments were conducted on real engine and C++ program was validated using experimental data. In experimental investigation the brake power and brake torque for E15 was increased by 2.96% and 1.6% respectively. The fuel consumption for E15 is lower by 1.3% than E0 at lower speed of 2308rpm, higher for E15 by 1.7% than E0 at highest brake power (2950rpm) and higher for E15 by 2.5% than E0 at highest speed (3440rpm).  The deviation between results obtained from simulation and experimental investigation was less than 5% for all analyzed engine parameters.

Keywords: Alternative fuels, Ethanol gasoline blends, thermodynamic analysis, C++, SI engine

Downloads

Published

2021-01-07

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 3 (2020)

Section

Research Article

License

Declaration and Copyright Transfer Form

(to be completed by authors)

I/ We, the undersigned author(s) of the submitted manuscript, hereby declare, that the above manuscript which is submitted for publication in the STM Journals(s), is not published already in part or whole (except in the form of abstract) in any journal or magazine for private or public circulation, and, is not under consideration of publication elsewhere.

  • I/We will not withdraw the manuscript after 1 week of submission as I have read the Author Guidelines and will adhere to the guidelines.
  • I/We Author(s ) have niether given nor will give this manuscript elsewhere for publishing after submitting in STM Journal(s).
  • I/ We have read the original version of the manuscript and am/ are responsible for the thought contents embodied in it. The work dealt in the manuscript is my/ our own, and my/ our individual contribution to this work is significant enough to qualify for authorship.
  •  I/We also agree to the authorship of the article in the following order:

Author’s name                                    

 

1. ________________

2. ________________

3. ________________

4. ________________

 

We  Author(s) tick this box and would request you to consider it as our signature as we agree to the terms of this Copyright Notice, which will apply to this submission if and when it is published by this journal.