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Abstract
Renewable energy sources for the gasoline engines alcohols gain importance recently. These renewable energy sources have attracted
the attention of researchers as alternative fuel due to their high octane number. In addition, these are also clean energy sources and can
be obtained from the biomass alcohols with low carbon like ethanol. In this study, the eect of compression ratio on engine performance
and exhaust emissions was examined at stoichiometric air/fuel ratio, full load and minimum advanced timing for the best torque MBT in
a single cylinder, four stroke, with variable compression ratio and spark ignition engine.
2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Spark ignition engine; Compression ratio; Exhaust emissions; Alternative fuel; Ethanol
1. Introduction
The majority of the energy used today is obtained from
the fossil fuels. Due to the continuing increases in the cost
of fossil fuels, demands for clean energy have also been
increasing. Therefore, alternative fuels sources are sought.
Some of the most important fuels are biogas, natural gas,
vegetable oil and its esters alcohols and hydrogen. Ethyl
alcohol, which is one of the renewable energy sources
and is obtained from biomass, has been tested intensively
in the internal combustion engines. Some properties of
ethyl alcohol with comparison to gasoline are given in
Table 1 [1].
Due to the high evaporation heat, high octane number
and high ammability temperature, ethyl alcohol has positive inuence on the engine performance and increases the
compression ratio. The low reid evaporation pressure
*
Corresponding author. Address: Department of Mechanical Education, Faculty of Technical Education, Gazi University, Besevler, 06500
Ankara, Turkey, Tel.: +90 312 212 68 20/1850; fax: +90 312 212 00 59.
E-mail address: yucesu@gazi.edu.tr (H.S. Yucesu).
1359-4311/$ - see front matter 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2006.03.006
enable to storage and transportation safely. Since the oxygen contain has positive eect on environment. In spite of
its positive eect when used in gasoline engine as alternative fuel, it is necessary to make some modication on
the engine. The fuel system requires more fuel. The vehicle
takes less distance with alcohol fuel than gasoline. Because
of the rst cold starting problem of the pure ethanol, the
blend called E85 has a widespread usage as alternative fuel.
This fuel consists of 15 vol% unleaded gasoline and
85 vol% ethanol. However, the other blend consisting of
90% gasoline and 10% ethanol called as gasohol. In addition, the ame of the alcohol is colorless in the natural
burning processes and this is another advantage of alcohols
[2,3].
The eects of ethanol and gasoline blends on spark ignition engine emissions were investigated by Hseih et al., [4].
In their study, test fuels were prepared using 99.9% pure
ethanol and gasoline blended with the volumetric ratios
of 030% (E0, E5, E10, E20 and E30). These percentages
represent the ratios of ethanol amount in total blends. In
the experiments performed at dierent throttle openings
and engine speeds, nearly the same torque values were
obtained when used dierent ratios of ethanolgasoline
Chemical formula
Molecular weight
Oxygen (mass%)
Net lower heating value (MJ/kg)
Latent heat (kJ/L)
Stoichiometric air/fuel ratio
Vapor pressure at 23.5 C (kPa)
MON
RON
Gasoline
Ethanol
C4C12
100105
04
43.5
223.2
14.6
6090
8292
91100
C2H5OH
46
34.7
27
725.4
9
17
92
111
2273
2274
Lambda (k)
CO (vol%)
CO2 (vol%)
HC (ppm)
O2 (vol%)
Specication
Type
Number of cylinder
Cylinder bore stroke
Maximum speed
Maximum power
Compression ratio
Valve arrangement
Fuel system
Timing range
Hydra
1
80.26 88.9 mm
5400 rpm
15 kW
5/113/1
Overhead camshaft, two vertical valves
Petrol injection
70 BTDC20 ATDC
Accuracy
0.802.00
010%
020%
020,000
021%
0.001
0.01%
0.01%
1
0.1%
Table 2
Test engine specications
Item
Measurements range
Table 3
Properties of ethanolunleaded gasoline blended fuels (E0, E10, E20, E40 and E60)
Property item
Distillation (vol%)
70 C
100 C
180 C
Density (kg/m3 at 15 C)
RVP (kPa)
Lead content (g/L)
Sulfur (wt%)
Stoichiometric airfuel ratio (weight)a
Lower heating value (kJ/kg)a
RON
MON
a
Method
Test fuels
ASTM D 86
ASTM
ASTM
ASTM
ASTM
D
D
D
D
1298
323
3237
5453
ASTM D 2699
ASTM D 2700
E0
E10
E20
E40
E60
24
46.8
97.6
764.9
57.6
0.004
0.012
14.7
43,932
86.4
98.8
40.2
53.9
97.3
768
66.7
0.003
0.017
14.13
42,185
87.4
99.9
39.3
66
98
771.5
66.2
0.002
0.022
13.56
40,430
89.8
101.6
37.7
84.2
98.2
780.6
63
0
0.026
12.42
36,870
90.9
101.7
18.2
92.5
98.7
789.5
57.4
0
0.032
11.28
33,400
92.7
102.8
2275
450
E10
E40
E60
E20
420
33
390
32
360
31
330
30
300
29
270
28
10
11
Compression Ratio
12
BSFC (g/kWh)
Torque (Nm)
34
E0
240
13
32
28
E0
E10
E40
E60
E20
24
20
16
12
8
10
11
Compression Ratio
12
13
14
take over. In our study, to obtain k = 1 the opening duration of the injector increases depend on the ethanol percentage. Thus the energy amount in the cylinder remains
nearly constant. Therefore in all compression ratios the
better engine performance was obtained than E0 by using
blends up to the 60% ethanol. The relative airfuel ratio
(k) is dened as
k
AFRact:
AFRst:
(AFR)act is actual airfuel ratio and (AFR)st. is stoichiometric airfuel ratios of test fuels.
Ignition timing variations, causing detonation, with
compression ratio at 2000 rpm is seen in Fig. 4. Sound of
detonation could be heard at low speeds, particularly when
increased in advanced timing. At the same time the knock
formations were observed on oscilloscope screen. In the
experiment performed with E40 and E60 ethanol blends
were not observed knock formations with MBT. When
the ignition timing increased above the MBT, the knock
phenomena can be seen with E40 and E60. Higher octane
number of ethanol and blends compared with gasoline
yield better detonation resistance.
Variation of BSFCs at the same experimental conditions
at 3500 and 5000 rpm engine speeds are shown in Fig. 5
and Fig. 6, respectively. With increasing compression ratio
at both engine speeds, the engine torque increased. At the
compression ratio of 13:1 compared with compression
35
40
35
30
25
E0
E10
E20
E40
E60
20
15
10
5
8
10
11
12
Compression Ratio
13
14
2276
490
E10
E40
E60
E20
440
32
390
30
340
28
290
26
10
11
Compression Ratio
12
BSFC (g/kWh)
Torque (Nm)
34
E0
240
13
480
E10
E40
E60
E20
440
28
400
26
360
24
320
22
280
20
10
11
Compression Ratio
12
BSFC (g/kWh)
Torque (Nm)
30
E0
32
40
36
E0
E10
E40
E60
E20
32
28
24
20
7
10
11
Compression Ratio
12
13
14
240
13
820
E0
E10
E40
E60
E20
780
5000 rpm
760
740
800
720
3500 rpm
700
680
660
36
E0
E40
32
E10
E60
E20
640
28
620
2000 rpm
24
600
20
16
580
12
7
10
11
Compression Ratio
12
13
14
560
7
10
11
Compression Ratio
12
13
14
E0
E2 0
E6 0
HC (ppm)
22 0
E1 0
E4 0
20 0
18 0
16 0
2000 rpm
14 0
12 0
10
11
Compression Ratio
12
13
14
18 0
16 0
HC (ppm)
2277
14 0
12 0
10 0
80
3500 rpm
60
40
7
10
11
Compression Ratio
12
13
14
120
100
CO (vol %)
0.8
E0
E10
E40
E60
HC (ppm)
0.9
E20
80
60
5000 rpm
40
0.7
20
0.6
0.5
10
11
Compression Ratio
12
13
14
2000 rpm
0.4
7
10
11
Compression Ratio
12
13
14
10
11
Compression Ratio
12
13
14
0.9
CO (vol %)
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
3500 rpm
0.4
7
1.1
CO (vol %)
0.9
4. Conclusions
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
5000 rpm
10
11
Compression Ratio
12
13
14
2278
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by Gazi University Scientic
Research Foundation in frame of the project code of
TEF.07./2002-27. The fuel tests were performed by Petro-