Modelling the effects of ethanol fumigation on engine performance and emissions in a six-cylinder, common rail diesel engine

This paper describes a one-dimensional thermodynamic model developed using AVL BOOST with the objective of analysing the performance, combustion parameters and NOx emissions of a Euro III, six-cylinder turbocharged Cummins diesel engine. The model was validated against experimental data obtained from the same engine run at a constant speed of 2000 rpm at varying load conditions (full, three quarter (3Q) and half load) using low sulphur diesel fuel (D100), as well as fumigated ethanol at 10% (D90), 20% (D80) and 30% (D70) substitutions (by energy). The results for D100, D90, D80 and D70 were found to be in good agreement with the experimental data. The percentage variation for engine performance parameters such as: brake power (BP), indicated power (IP), indicated torque (IT) and mean effective pressure (MEP) for D100 have been found to be approximately in the range of -5% to 1.5% for all loads, whereas, the fuel energy variation was only 0.33% for all loads. With increasing ethanol fumigation, a rise in peak pressure of the cycle, more rapid initial heat release rate and a reduction in the NOx emissions were observed in this study.