IAETSD JOURNAL FOR ADVANCED RESEARCH IN APPLIED SCIENCES, VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1, JAN-JUNE /2017

ISSN (ONLINE): 2394-8442

DESIGN & OPTIMIZATION OF AIR-FUEL MIXING DEVICE

FOR ENRICHED BIOGAS ENGINE
H. S. Salave*1, Aniket Verma#2, Vikas Kesari#3, Aditya Kedari#4, Palash Janbandhu#5
*
Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, M.E.S College of Engineering, Pune, SPPU
#
Department of Mechanical Engineering, M.E.S College of Engineering, Pune, SPPU
1
salaveharshal@gmail.com, aniketverma900@gmail.com, 3vikaskesari1611@gmail.com, 4adityaak26@gmail.com,
2
5
pal007jan@gmail.com

ABSTRACT.

In recent years, the consumption of fuel has been increased to drastic level, causing more
extraction of fuel from earth. This is causing depletion of fossil fuels leaving this generation to search for
alternative fuel options. In developing country like India, the fuel prices are hiking day by day, because of
rapid growth in industries & urbanization. An estimate indicates India has a potential of generating 6.38 10 10
m3 of biogas from 980 million tons of cattle dung produced annually. The heat content of this much amount of
biogas can be effectively utilised for power and electricity generation by biogas engine. The emission from
biogas engines is found to be lesser than conventional SI and CI engines. The engine modifications are needed
for converting current diesel engines to run on enriched biogas. The air-fuel mixing device is one such
necessary modification for complete combustion of fuel. The venturi type air-fuel mixer is selected for mixing
the enriched biogas with air. The venturi mixer provides suction at different engine speeds due to pressure
difference produced at throat. The properly designed venturi mixer can result into uniform mixing of enriched
biogas, thus complete combustion of fuel and better engine efficiency. In this project the design optimizations
are carried out such as throat diameter, convergent angle and size & number of holes for fuel supply. The
optimization of throat is important as smaller throat size will cause poor engine performance at high speed,
while larger throat size will reduce the fuel supply. The mixer is designed for four stroke single cylinder engine
with the help of CATIA software. The mixing phenomenon is validated using computational fluid dynamics
(CFD) as analysis tool. The contours of pressure, velocity, turbulence and mass fraction are obtained for
different venturis and comparatively analysed. The mixer with most homogeneous mixing is selected for
further work.

Keywords: - Biogas Enrichment, Fuel intake system, Air-Fuel Mixing, CFD Analysis.

I. INTRODUCTION
Use of alternative fuels for energy is the biggest issue faced by developing countries, meanwhile in developed countries like Germany, Sweden
the energy requirements are full-filled satisfactorily because of availability of technology for using alternative fuels. Use of biogas as an
alternative fuel is one of the important aspect in energy production. In 2016 India announced that the country would skip the BS-V norms
altogether and adopt BS-VI norms by 2020. This will result in ruling out old diesel engines. Instead scrapping these engines we can modify them
to run on enriched biogas. The previous work shows that the emissions from biogas engines are much lower than the diesel engines. For
developing country like India where most of the population live in rural areas, electricity supply is the biggest problem faced by villagers. This
problem can be solved by installing community power plants working on enriched biogas. As in the villages the cow dung & other organic waste
material is available in abundant quantity. This type of power plants can solve many problems along with electricity generation, such as waste
management, high cost electricity etc. The initiative should be taken for power plants working on enriched biogas. In this project the work is
carried out on modifying the single cylinder four stroke diesel engine into enriched biogas engine operating in SI mode. The major modification
required is air and fuel mixing system. The venturi type mixer is designed and analysed for proper mixing of air with enriched biogas. Currently
there are CNG kits are available, but their cost is high. For converting diesel engines into biogas engines at nominal cost, use of venturi type
mixer is affordable. The loss of volumetric efficiency is overcome by using venturi type mixer as required fuel is supplied depending on the
engine speed.

To Cite This Article: H. S. Salave, Aniket Verma, Vikas Kesari, Aditya Kedari and Palash Janbandhu,.
DESIGN & OPTIMIZATION OF AIR-FUEL MIXING DEVICE FOR ENRICHED BIOGAS
ENGINE. Journal for Advanced Research in Applied Sciences ;Pages: 440-446
441. H. S. Salave, Aniket Verma, Vikas Kesari, Aditya Kedari and Palash Janbandhu,. DESIGN &
OPTIMIZATION OF AIR-FUEL MIXING DEVICE FOR ENRICHED BIOGAS ENGINE. Journal
for Advanced Research in Applied Sciences; Pages: 440-446

K.A. Subramanian, Vinaya C. Mathad , V. K. Vijay , P.M.V. Subbarao performed experiment to find the fuel economy and mass emission of an
automotive spark ignition vehicle fuelled with the methane enriched biogas (93% CH4) and base CNG (89.14%) . The result showed no
significant difference in fuel economy between enriched biogas (24.11 km/kg) and base CNG (24.38 km/kg). CO2 emission for the enriched
biogas and base CNG is 113.72 g/km and 113.98 g/km respectively. The transient emissions such as CO, HC and NOx are very higher during
urban driving cycle than extra urban driving cycle. It is identified as a key point that performance and emission characteristics of the vehicle
could be improved significantly by improving the vehicles transient performance [1].

R. Chandra, V. K. Vijay, P. M.V. Subbarao, T. K. Khura performed a experiment on 5.9 kW stationary diesel engine which was converted into
spark ignition mode and run on compressed natural gas (CNG), methane enriched biogas (Bio-CNG). The maximum brake power produced by
the engine at ignition advance of 350 TDC for all fuels. The power deteriorations of the engine was observed to be 31.8%, 35.6% and 46.3% on
compressed natural gas, methane enriched biogas and raw biogas, respectively.

S.D. Yadav, Dr. Bimlesh Kumar, Dr. Thipse. Conducted an experiment on a motor cycle four stroke engine fuelled by gasoline. They concluded
that engine is operated satisfactorily for purified biogas because more time is available for combustion which is not suitable for petrol and
unpurified biogas.

Bhaskor J. Bora, Biplab K. Debnath, Nikhil Gupta, Niranjan Sahoo modified the engine that includes the installation of a gas mixer at the inlet
manifold of the engine . It is seen that the venturi type design with biogas injected at 450 at throat provides better mixing of biogas with air.

II. PROBLEM STATEMENT

Currently there are no specific biogas mixers available in the market. The engine which was ran without any air-fuel mixing device
was unable to operate at heavy loads. The engine was chocking repeatedly. The basic problem identified is lack of homogeneous mixing of
enriched biogas with air, due to which incomplete combustion occurs and engine could not take heavy loads. To encounter the mixing problem,
a proper air-fuel mixing device should be designed and installed. The venturi type mixer is designed and analysed using computational fluid
dynamics before fabrication and installation.

III. RAW & ENRICHED BIOGAS

The raw biogas obtained from different sources has different composition depending on the organic waste. The heat content available
is due to methane (CH4) which is in less concentration in raw biogas. In order to utilise biogas in IC engine, it should be enriched. The most
widely used method is water scrubbing, due to feasibility & cost effectiveness. After enriching the biogas can be used directly in the engine as an
suitable alternative fuel. The table 1 shows the composition of raw & enriched biogas:

Sr. no. Constituent % in Raw Biogas % in Enriched Biogas

1 Methane 61.22 94
2 Carbon Dioxide 32.01 2.45
3 Hydrogen Sulphide (ppm) 986 112
4 Oxygen 2.76 1.75
5 Moisture 3.91 1.08

Table 1. Composition of raw & enriched biogas

The enriched biogas has calorific value near to the diesel, which makes it a good substitute fuel for IC engines. The carbon content is also less as
methane (CH4) is single carbon compound; hence after combustion the products are mainly CO2 & water. The emissions are found to be less
compared to petrol & diesel engines in the previous literature. The major advantage of enriched biogas is its octane rating, which is higher than
petrol. The different properties of diesel, petrol & enriched biogas are listed in the table 2:

Parameter Diesel Petrol Enriched Biogas

Calorific Value 42 MJ/kg 48 MJ/kg 40-43 MJ/kg
(MJ/kg)
Cetane Number 45-55 - -
Octane Number - 91 130
3 3
Density 820 kg/m 737 kg/m 1.214kg/m3

Table 1. Properties of diesel, petrol & enriched biogas

IV. VENTURI MIXER

The principle characteristic of a Biogas mixer was known to analyse the operation of the mixer. The operation of a mixer is that the
change in velocity causes a change in pressure in the contraction passage which in turn effects a change in low of the fuel to join and mix with
the main airflow in the required proportion.
442. H. S. Salave, Aniket Verma, Vikas Kesari, Aditya Kedari and Palash Janbandhu,. DESIGN &
OPTIMIZATION OF AIR-FUEL MIXING DEVICE FOR ENRICHED BIOGAS ENGINE. Journal
for Advanced Research in Applied Sciences; Pages: 440-446

Fig. 1.Venturi mixer with gas supply through holes.

where,
Ci -velocity at mixer inlet, Cv -velocity at venturi contraction,
di -diameter of mixer/engine inlet, dv -diameter of venturi contraction,
Co -velocity of mixture at engine inlet.

The venturi principle functions as follows:

For high air flow rate:

1. The velocity of air is high.

2. Due to contracted cross-section air pressure is low.
3. The pressure difference between fuel gas and airstream is high.
4. Much fuel gas flows through the openings to mix with the airstream.

For low air flow rate:

1. The velocity of air is low.

2. Due to contracted cross-section air pressure is high.
3. The pressure difference between fuel gas and airstream is low.
4. Little fuel gas flows through the openings to join the airstream. Bernoulli's equation for pressure difference is given by:
5.

The pressure drop is inversely proportional to area, therefore the pressure is minimum at throat and velocity is high. The main parameter for
designing venturi meter is convergent angle, divergent angle, (ratio between inlet manifold diameter and venturi throat diameter) and Nozzle
angle .The convergent and divergent angle is 200 and 40 respectively. Nozzle angle is 450. ratio is kept in range of 0.6 to 0.8 for good mixing of
fuel. The throat diameter of 22, 21, 20, 18 and 16 mm is selected for simulation the design parameter are calculated based on diesel engine
capacity (3.5kW). Models are simulated with convergent angles 200, 240 & 280 keeping constant throat diameter.

Fig 2. Optimized venturi mixer with throat diameter 16 mm and convergent angle 200 All dimensions in mm

V. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The CFD analysis has been carried out in FLUENT software, which is available in ANSYS Workbench 14.5. The actual setup is
simulated with fuel composition properties given in table 1. All the conceptualized models are first modelled in Design Modeller assuming one
plane of the mixer and then they are simulated in fluent. The governing equations of the dynamics of air and gas are taken from the software
package itself. The air is considered as ideal gas and enriched biogas is given the actual density. The equations governing the mixing of the gases
are: continuity, momentum, energy, species & turbulence.
443. H. S. Salave, Aniket Verma, Vikas Kesari, Aditya Kedari and Palash Janbandhu,. DESIGN &
OPTIMIZATION OF AIR-FUEL MIXING DEVICE FOR ENRICHED BIOGAS ENGINE. Journal
for Advanced Research in Applied Sciences; Pages: 440-446

1. Turbulence model:

The turbulence is necessary in any air-fuel mixing system, since turbulence creates the rapid movement of molecules causing them to come in
contact with each other. The intensity of turbulence accounts for homogeneous mixing and then for complete combustion of the fuel. The
standard k- model is used to solve the turbulence problem for the three inlets; one is air inlet and the other two for enriched biogas inlet. The
turbulence intensity is taken as 4% for both the inlets i.e. air and biogas.

2. Meshing of model:

For obtaining higher accuracy in the result, mapped meshing is used. The mesh quality decides the accuracy in the solution. The critical area
under consideration is throat section of the venturi; hence maximum refinement is obtained at throat.

Fig 3. Meshed model with refinement at throat section

3. Boundary conditions:

In this problem there are three boundary conditions viz. air inlet, biogas inlet & pressure at outlet. The air intake of the engine is
calculated for full load conditions at 1500 rpm. The air velocity is kept constant for every model simulated and its pressure is atmospheric. The
biogas inlet is at atmospheric pressure. The outlet is assumed at atmospheric pressure for simulation purpose.

VI. RESULTS & DISCUSSION

1. Pressure drop analysis:

Fig. 4 [A] and [B] shows the pressure contours of actual setup and venturi mixer respectively. In the actual setup the biogas is injected at 900
directly in the intake manifold. There is no significant pressure drop is observed in order to cause suction of biogas fuel. The venturi mixer
produces sufficient pressure drop at throat due to contraction causing suction of biogas. The pressure obtained at throat of venturi is 93181.98
Pa.

A B

Fig 4. Contours of pressure for [A]actual setup, [B]venturi mixer

2. Velocity analysis:

Fig. 5 [A] and [B] shows the velocity contours of actual setup and venturi mixer respectively. There are low velocity regions near the biogas
inlet in case of actual setup which results into loss of energy. In case of venturi mixer the velocity of air is high as the pressure energy is
converted into kinetic energy. The high velocity gas is necessary for creating turbulence. The maximum air velocity obtained at throat section is
91.2 0m/s.
444. H. S. Salave, Aniket Verma, Vikas Kesari, Aditya Kedari and Palash Janbandhu,. DESIGN &
OPTIMIZATION OF AIR-FUEL MIXING DEVICE FOR ENRICHED BIOGAS ENGINE. Journal
for Advanced Research in Applied Sciences; Pages: 440-446

A B

Fig 5. Contours of velocity for [A]actual setup, [B]venturi mixer

3. Turbulence intensity analysis:

Fig. 6 [A] and [B] shows the turbulence intensity contours of actual setup and venturi mixer respectively. The turbulence improves the mixing
at molecular level. In the actual setup the turbulence is not uniform as seen in fig. 6[A]. The turbulence is observed to be uniform over the wide
area along the venturi length after the throat section as shown in fig. 6[B]. This indicates homogeneous mixing of biogas with air as required for
complete combustion of the fuel.

A B

Fig 6. Contours of turbulence intensity for [A]actual setup, [B]venturi mixer

4. CH4 mass fraction analysis:

Fig. 7 [A] and [B] shows the CH4 mass fraction contours of actual setup and venturi mixer respectively. Fig. 7[B] illustrates that concentration of
CH4 is more near the wall region of the manifold. The biogas is not mixing properly with the air and the mixture at outlet is non-uniform. In case
of venturi mixer from fig. 7 [B] it can be clearly seen that the CH4 concentration is uniform at the venturi outlet. Both air and biogas are mixed
uniformly and homogeneous mixture is obtained as required.

A B

Fig 7. Contours of mass fraction of CH4 for [A]actual setup, [B]venturi mixer
445. H. S. Salave, Aniket Verma, Vikas Kesari, Aditya Kedari and Palash Janbandhu,. DESIGN &
OPTIMIZATION OF AIR-FUEL MIXING DEVICE FOR ENRICHED BIOGAS ENGINE. Journal
for Advanced Research in Applied Sciences; Pages: 440-446

5. Effect of different convergent angles on pressure drop at throat:

Fig. 8 [A], [B]and [C] shows the pressure contours of venturi models with convergent angles 20 0, 240 and 280 respectively. The analysis is
carried out for 9 venturies with throat diameter 22, 21 and 20mm. It is seen that the maximum pressure drop is observed for venturi with 240
convergent angles. The same trend is observed for all the venturies simulated.

A B

Fig 8. Contours of pressure for venturi with throat diameter 20mm with different convergent angles [A] 200, [B] 240, [C] 280

102000
Pressure vs Length
101500
101000
Pressure (Pa)

100500
20dia 20deg
100000
20dia 24deg
99500 20dia28deg
99000
98500
0 25 50 75 100 125 150 175 200 225 250 275
Length (mm)

Fig 9. Plot of pressure vs venturi length for 20mm throat diameter models with different convergent angles.
446. H. S. Salave, Aniket Verma, Vikas Kesari, Aditya Kedari and Palash Janbandhu,. DESIGN &
OPTIMIZATION OF AIR-FUEL MIXING DEVICE FOR ENRICHED BIOGAS ENGINE. Journal
for Advanced Research in Applied Sciences; Pages: 440-446

CONCLUSION
In the present work, CFD analysis of the proposed venturi type Air-Fuel mixer is carried out on the basis of pressure, turbulence intensity,
velocity, mass fraction of CH4.In the process of designing the Biogas mixer, it can be deduced that the design has reached the objectives set. A
venturi mixer type was designed for a 661cc four stroke engine application. A mixer capable of providing a stoichiometric AF ratio condition
and low pressure drop was created.

1. It is seen that the venturi type design provides a higher pressure drop at the throat region and ensures a better suction of biogas which
ultimately boosts the mixing
2. The different venturies are analysed and the effect of different converging angles (20 0, 240, and 280) is studied.
3. The maximum pressure drop at throat is observed in venturi with converging angle 240.
4. The venturies with throat diameter 22, 21 20 & 18mm are not able to mix the biogas with air, as the pressure drop obtained is not
sufficient to suck the biogas from the holes.
5. The venturi with throat diameter 16mm gives the uniform and homogeneous mixing as required, with maximum pressure drop at
throat section.

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