Optical investigation on diesel engine fuelled by vegetable oils

In the present paper the combustion behaviour and soot generation of different neat vegetable oils on a direct injection optical diesel engine have been investigated using in-cylinder pressure based combustion analysis and high-speed two colour method. A singlecylinder optical diesel engine with an electronically controlled common-rail fuel injection system has been used for this study. Four different vegetable oils, Jatropha, Croton, Rapeseed and Sunflower oil, have been tested at 120 MPa injection pressure and fuel temperatures of 60 and 90 °C. All tests were performed at fixed injection timings and fixed engine speed at 1200 rev/min with pilot and main injection. The experimental results show that although all four bio-oils have very similar physiochemical properties, some differences in their combustion and soot generation behaviour have been observed. It was concluded that sunflower oil (SFO) had very good combustion properties at lower temperatures compared to other fuels. While croton oil (CO) did not have outstanding combustion behaviour at any conditions, the combustion of Jatropha oil (JO) was improved at higher fuel injection temperatures.