Experimental Investigation of Castor Oil and Methanol Powered DI-CI Engine with Thermal Barrier Coated Piston

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S. Raja
S. Venkatesh
R. Gokulnath
J. Lilly Mercy

Abstract

Biodiesel has gained the attention of many researchers all over the world. Although several biodiesel are utilized as fuel for diesel engine, the thermal efficiency of the engine while running with biodiesel does not meet the standards of neat diesel. In this research work an attempt was made to run the direct injection compression Ignition (DI-CI) diesel engine with thermal barrier coated piston with castor oil and methanol fuel blends. Thermal barrier coating (TBC) increases the heat absorption rate thereby reduces the amount of heat rejected to the exhaust system. TBC also overcomes the problem of using biodiesel in CI engines that it compensates the efficiency loss due to lower calorific value of biodiesel. On the other hand, methanol blended with castor oil has the ability to reduce the oxides of nitrogen and smoke emissions simultaneously. The experimental results show that an increase of 3.07% in brake thermal efficiency is achieved when the thermal barrier coated CI engine is fuelled with methanol and castor oil blend when compared with neat diesel. Also, the NOx emissions and smoke intensity are reduced by 44% and 28.5% respectively with the same blend.

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