Combustion characteristics of hydrotreated vegetable oil – diesel blend under EGR and supercharged conditions

This paper investigates the effects of Hydrotreated vegetable oil-diesel blend to combustion characteristics under various ambient oxygen concentrations and ambient pressure. Combustion characteristics were investigated using heat release rate analysis, two color method, soot concentration measurement and NOx concentration measurement. The experiments were carried out on a rapid compression expansion machine to simulate the ambient condition of a CI engine at TDC. Synthetic gas with oxygen concentrations of 21 %, 15 % and 10 % were used to simulate EGR conditions. A single hole injector was used with five different fuels: commercial diesel, HVO-commercial diesel blends and HVO. The results showed that increasing HVO blending percentages decreased ignition delay, flame temperature, soot concentration and NOx concentration. Heat release at oxygen concentration of 10 % dramatically dropped due to a shortened ignition delay, which resulted in less combustion. A decreased oxygen concentration from applied EGR conditions not only increased ignition delay, heat release, flame temperature and NOx concentration, but also increased soot concentration. A combination of EGR and supercharged conditions by increasing ambient pressure and decreasing oxygen concentrations resulted in increased heat release, decreased flame temperature, ignition delay and soot concentration, compared to EGR conditions.