Technical Paper
Biodiesel Effects on Cycle-to-Cycle Variability of Combustion Characteristics in a Common-Rail Medium-Duty Diesel Engine
2010-04-12
2010-01-0867
The potential of biodiesel as a viable alternative to petroleum diesel has been driving experimental efforts to insure efficient, high-power, and low emissions operation for many years. Literature is rich with discussion about the differences in operation between biodiesel and petroleum diesel; often, however, these discussions focus on time averaged results that may not detect subtle differences in cycle-to-cycle operation. This aspect has motivated this research study, which compares certain combustion aspects of both fuels on a cycle-by-cycle basis. Thus, the objective of this experimental study is to link fuel property differences between biodiesel and petroleum diesel fuels to potential differences in cycle-to-cycle variability. Steady-state operation of a medium-duty diesel engine at nine different operating conditions, for each fuel, is discussed.