Response surface methodology based prediction of engine performance and exhaust emissions of a diesel engine fuelled with canola oil methyl ester

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of fuel injection timing and engine speed on engine performance and exhaust emission parameters using a diesel engine running on canola oil methyl ester (COME). COME was produced by means of the transesterification method and tested at full load with various engine speeds by changing fuel injection timing (12, 15, and 18 degrees CA) in a turbocharged direct injection (TDI) diesel engine. The experiments were designed using response surface methodology (RSM), which is one of the well-known design of experiment technique for predicting the responses engine performance and exhaust emission parameters from a second order polynomial equation obtained by modeling the relation between fuel injection timing (t) and engine speed (n) parameters. By using the second order full quadratic RSM models obtained from experimental results, responses brake power, brake torque, brake mean effective pressure, brake specific fuel consumption, brake thermal efficiency, exhaust gas temperature, oxygen (O-2), oxides of nitrogen (NOx), carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and light absorption coefficient (K) affected from factors t and n were able to be predicted by 95% confidence interval.