Design and Development of Biogas Venturi Mixture for Stationary Diesel Engine Using Analytical and CFD Approach

Abstract

The major problem to use biogas as an alternative fuel in diesel engines is the modification needed for converting the current diesel engine into an enriched biogas engine. The fuel intake system is one of the major modifications required for the diesel engine. To overcome this problem, a new biogas venturi mixture has been designed by using an analytical and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) approach. With the new fuel intake system, the engine runs effectively and properly using enriched biogas as an alternative fuel. It has been observed that simple modifications are required in the fuel intake system such that convergent divergent angle, throat diameter, etc. for uniform mixing of enriched biogas and air for complete combustion of fuel for improving engine performance and efficiency. This paper focuses on the design and development of a biogas venturi mixture with different convergent angles (20°, 24° & 28°, etc.) and different throat diameters (22 mm, 21mm, 20mm, 18mm & 16 mm etc.) used in a 3.5 kW, 661CC, 4-stroke stationary diesel engines using an analytical and CFD approach. This paper concludes that 16 mm throat diameter and 24° convergent angle, the maximum pressure drop and maximum velocity observed in a uniform and homogenous mixture. Better mixing can affect combustion, which leads to improved volumetric efficiency, brake thermal efficiency with reduced emission.