The Effect of Oxygenated Diesel-N-Butanol Fuel Blends on Combustion, Performance, and Exhaust Emissions of a Turbocharged CRDI Diesel Engine

The article deals with the effects made by using various n-butanol-diesel fuel blends on the combustion history, engine performance and exhaust emissions of a turbocharged four-stroke, four-cylinder, CRDI 1154HP (85 kW) diesel engine. At first, load characteristics were taken when running an engine with normal diesel fuel (DF) to have ‘baseline’ parameters at the two ranges of speed of 1800 and 2500 rpm. Four a fossil diesel (class 1) and normal butanol (n-butanol) fuel blends possessing 1 wt%, 2 wt%, 3 wt%, and 4 wt% (by mass) of n-butanol-bound oxygen fractions were prepared by pouring 4.65 wt% (BD1), 9.30 wt% (BD2), 13.95 wt% (BD3), and 18.65 wt% (BD4) n-butanol to diesel fuel. Then, load characteristics were taken when an engine with n-butanol-oxygenated fuel blends at the same speeds. Analysis of the changes occurred in the autoignition delay, combustion history, the cycle-to-cycle variation, engine efficiency, smoke, and exhaust emissions NOx, CO, THC obtained with purposely designed fuel blends was performed on comparative bases with the corresponding values measured with ‘baseline’ diesel fuel to reveal the potential developing trends.