Abstract:

In this paper, an attempt was made to evaluate the diesel engine combustion, emission and performance characteristics runs with Jatropha curcus methyl esters (JCME) blends operated at different compression ratios. The detailed experimental analysis has been made by considering JCME20, JCME40 and JCME 60 blends and compared with diesel fuel (D100). JCME blends exhibits better combustion behaviour and lower emissions when compared with diesel fuel. The computational engine model was developed for CFD analysis and the detailed study of combustion phenomena in the engine cylinder was done with flame initiation propagation profiles. The results shows increased peak cylinder pressure with JCME blends and JCME 60 exhibits increased maximum heat release rate compared with diesel fuel. Also, BSFC of JCME60 shows lower values, whereas the BTE of JCME blends were found to be more at 28% rated load on the engine operated at the compression ratio (CR-18) compared with counterpart diesel fuel. In this work, significant reduction in CO and HC emissions were noticed for JCME blends at compression ratio 18 (CR-18) and JCME20 exhibits lower NOx emissions at lower and moderate loads compared with diesel fuel. The experimental results were validated using CFD simulation results and variation of cylinder pressure and heat release rates for JCME 60 and diesel fuels were found be within 5%.<

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