SPRAY AND COMBUSTION

CHARACTERISTICS OF BIODIESEL
- CHANG SIK LEE

OBJECTIVES:

To investigate the effect of blending ratio and

pilot injection on the spray and combustion
characteristics of biodiesel fuel and compare
these with those of diesel fuels in a direct
injection common-rail diesel engine.
The macroscopic and microscopic spray
characteristics of biodiesel fuel, such as
injection rate, split injection effect, spray tip
penetration, droplet diameter, and axial velocity
distribution, were compared with the result from
conventional diesel fuel.

INTRODUCTION

Biodiesel fuel, an alternative diesel fuel, is an

environmentally clean and renewable energy
source.
It can be operated in a compression ignition
engine with little or no modifications.
Many studies on biodiesel fuel properties and
their effect on combustion and emission, also
focused on engine performance rather than on
spray and atomization characteristics.
The purpose of this work is to investigate the
effect of biodiesel blending fuel on the spray,
atomization characteristics, and emissions in a
direct injection diesel engine.

PERFORMED EXPERIMENT

The biodiesel test fuel used in this work was

derived from soybean oil.

Fuel properties were analyzed to investigate

correlations with the spray, combustion, and
exhaust emissions characteristics in a diesel
engine.

The injection rate of diesel and biodiesel were

measured and the effect of blending ratio and
pilot injection were measured by using the
injection rate measuring system.

Fig. 1 Spray visualization and droplet

measuring system

Figure 1 shows a schematic diagram of the spray

visualization and droplet measuring system. The
atomization characteristics such as Sauter mean
diameter (SMD) and droplet velocity distributions
were measured by a phase Doppler particle analyzer
(PDPA) system. In this system, a Ar-ion laser also used
for the light source and the signal analyzer was
synchronized with the fuel injection signal to obtained
the transient characteristics of the fuel atomization.

Fig. 2 Four-cylinder test common-rail

diesel engine

The influence of fuel blending ratio and pilot injection

of the biodiesel fuel on the combustion and emission
characteristics were studied by using a common-rail
diesel engine with four cylinders installed on an eddy
current EC dynamometer, as shown in Fig. 2. In order
to measure combustion pressure, a piezoelectric
combustion pressure sensor and data acquisition
board were installed. The common-rail injection
pressure was controlled by an electric control unit
ECU equipped with a programmable controller and a
crankshaft position sensor for rpm and crank angle
detection was installed. For the control of fuel
injection timing and quantities, the universal ECU and
interface system were used. The exhaust emissions
such as HC, CO, Nox, and soot were detected and
analyzed by an exhaust emissions measuring system.

RESULTS

1. Injection Rate Characteristics:

Fig. 3 Effect of injection quantity on the biodiesel fuel injection

rate

In this experiment, the injected fuel mass per cycle was set at
a constant 12 mg to study the effect of the blending ratio and
pilot injection on biodiesel spray and combustion
characteristics. Figure 3 shows the pilot injection profiles of
biodiesel fuel with,
Blending ratio= 5%,
Injection pressure= 27 MPa,
Fuel mass of pilot & main injection= m p & mm,
injection delay= 0.25 to 0.26 ms,
Advanced time of pilot injection= 2.0 ms.

Fig. 4 Comparison of injection rate between single injection and

pilot injection conditions

Figure 4 shows a comparison of single and pilot injection

rates of diesel and biodiesel blending fuel. In the case of
single injection, the pattern of the fuel injection profiles were
all similar. But, in the case of pilot injection, the peak injection
rate of main biodiesel injection was a little lower than that of
diesel fuel.

2. Spray evolution characteristics:

Fig. 5 Comparison of spray evolution between single and pilot

injection conditions: (a) Single injection Condition, (b) pilot
injection condition

The spray characteristics of diesel and biodiesel blended fuel

were investigated to study the influence of the viscosity and
surface tension of biodiesel on spray development and
atomization performance.
Figure 5 shows a comparison of the spray evolution process
in the case of single injection and pilot injection of diesel and
biodiesel blending fuel at 100 MPa injection pressure as a
function of time after start of injection.
In the case of single injection, it can be observed that the
blending ratio of biodiesel fuel has little influence on spray
evolution.
In the case of pilot injection, the main spray is visible in the
frozen image 2.0 ms after the start of injection. It was also
observed that not only pilot spray but also main spray
development is shorter compared to that with diesel fuel.

3. Fuel Atomization Characteristics:

Fig. 6 Droplet diameter distribution of diesel and blended biodiesel fuels

(a ) Diesel fuel
(b)
Biodiesel fuel

The fuel droplet size is an important parameter in analyzing

spray characteristics. In order to compare the effect of the
physical properties of biodiesel and diesel fuels on the
atomization characteristics, the droplet diameter and axial
mean velocity are analyzed at different fuel injection
conditions.
The influence of single and pilot injections on droplet
size distributions according to the axial distance from the
nozzle tip is shown in Fig. 6. The pilot injection of diesel and
biodiesel had a smaller droplet diameter than the single
injection in the near area of nozzle tip.

4. Combustion characteristics:

Fig. 7 Combustion characteristics of diesel and biodiesel fuels in

main injection conditions: (a) Comparison of diesel and biodiesel
fuel; (b) effect of injection pressure

Figure 7 illustrates the influence of the fuel main injection

timing on combustion pressure and heat release rate in a
single injection.
In Fig. 7(a), the peak combustion pressures of
diesel and blending fuel were increased as the
injection timing advanced. The combustion pressure
and rate of heat release
of BD 5 and diesel were similar.
The effect of injection pressure on biodiesel
combustion is illustrated in Fig. 7(b). As the injection
pressure increased to 100 MPa, the combustion
pressure and rate of heat release increased.

CONCLUSION:

In the case of single injection, the patterns of fuel

injection profiles for diesel and biodiesel blended fuels
are very similar. On the other hand, in the case of pilot
injection, an increase of the blending ratio induced a
decrease of the peak injection rate.
The injection velocity of biodiesel fuel becomes
less than that of conventional diesel because
the small injected mass and high viscosity of
biodiesel cannot overcome the friction between
the fuel and surface of the nozzle hole.
The higher viscosity of biodiesel can be a reason
for lower axial mean velocity.

CONCLUSION (contd):

In the case of single injection, the spray velocity of

biodiesel fuel is slow over the whole injection period.
However, in the case of pilot injection, the spray
velocity increased suddenly 2 ms after the injection
starts because of the second main injection.
The combustion pressure and the rate of heat release
of biodiesel become higher at 100 MPa of injection
pressure.

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Exhaust Emissions of a Biodiesel Engine, Appl. Energy, 83, pp.
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