Internal Combustion Engines

Introduction

 Shortage of liquid fuel and gaseous fuels being cheaper then liquid fuels gave birth to
duel fuel engines.
 From recent air and water pollution concern it became necessary to utilize sewage gas.
 Gaseous fuels have high self-ignition temperature and burn efficiently.
 Dual-fuel operation combines the possibility of operation a diesel engine on liquid fuels
such as diesel oil or gas oil and on gaseous fuel such as natural gas, sewage gas and cook
oven gas.

Working Principle
  Works diesel cycle.
 Gaseous fuel (primary fuel) is added to air inducted into the engine or supplied by
supercharger.
 The mixture of air and gaseous fuel gets compressed in the cylinder.
 Liquid fuel called pilot fuel injected near the TDC acts as a source of ignition.
 Gas-air mixture ignites establishing a number of flame-fronts.
 In a dual-fuel engine combustion starts similar to CI engine, but it is propagated by
flame-fronts as in SI engine.

Gas mode

 High efficiency and low emissions.

 Automatic and instant transfer to diesel operation in alarm situations.
 Transfer to diesel operation at any load.

Diesel mode

 As an ordinary diesel engine.

 Transfer to gas operation preferably at part load.
  Pilot fuel injection in operation.

Performance of Dual-Fuel engine

 Produce equal power when operating on liquid fuels as with gaseous fuel.
 Duel fuel engines are slightly more efficient to conventional diesel at full load.
 However, the maximum output is about the same.
 Efficiency of duel in part load is slightly poor.
 Typical diesel efficiency is 41%, and duel efficiency is 38.5.

Advantages of Dual Fuel Engines

 Increased utility of the power plant as the versatility of change-over from gas to diesel
and vice-versa.
 Only a small amount of liquid full needed to run engine.
 Suitable for total energy installation (sewage gas).
 Can be used to produce synthetic gas, which is a mixture of CO and H

 Ideal for LPG tankers as they can utilize the gas which evaporates.

Factors affecting combustion in a duel fuel engine

 Pilot fuel quantity.

 Injection timing.
 Effect of cetane number.
 Effect of inlet temperature.
 Effect of type of gaseous fuels.
 Effect of throttling.
 Effect of mixture strength.

Main type gaseous fuel & their requirement

 Natural gas.
 Sewage gas.
 LPG.
  Town gas.
 Hydrogen gas.

Clean
Dry
Minimum calorific value
Gas-4500kcl/cm
light fuel oil-10,200 kcl/kg

Knock control in duel engine

 Excess supply of air
 Use of cold combustion air
 Increased cooling of piston
 Use of additives
 Reducing the pressure of the gaseous fuel

Multi-fuel Engines

 A multi-fuel engine is one which would operate satisfactorily with substantially

unchanged performance and efficiency, on a wide verity of fuels ranging from
diesel oil, crude oil to lighter fuels like gasoline and even normal lubrication oil.
 Mainly developed for military requirements.
 Has good idling and part load efficiency and low exhaust smoke.
 Should have high compression ratios as gasoline have low cetane number.
 Must be capable of starting at subzero temperatures.
 Large stroke/before ratio gives a compact combustions chamber so that it remains
hot in all conditions of speed.
 An open combustion chamber is suited as in a pre-combustion chamber, additional
heat losses due to throat occur (e.g., spherical or M-combustion chamber).

Difficulties

 Tendency of vapour lock while using lighter fuels.

 Tendency of increased wear due to lower lubricate of gasoline.
 Requirements for injecting different volumes of fuel depending on their heating values
and compressibility.