Effects of hydrogen flow rate, injection pressure and EGR on performance of common rail direct injection (CRDi) engine in dual fuel mode

Abstract

PurposeThe different performance tests were conducted on diesel engine compression ignition (CI) mode and CRDi engine.Design/methodology/approachThe CI engine was suitably modified to CRDi engine with Toroidal re-entrant combustion chamber (TRCC) and was run in dual-fuel (DF) mode. Hydrogen (H2) was supplied at different flow rates during the suction stroke, and 0.22 Kg/h of hydrogen fuel flow rate (HFFR) was found to be optimum. Diesel and biodiesel were used as pilot fuels. The CRDi engine with DF mode was run at various injection pressures, and 900 bar was found to be optimum injection pressure (IP) with 10o before top dead center (bTDC) as fuel injection timing (IT).FindingsThese operating engine conditions increased formation of oxides of nitrogen (NOx), which were reduced by exhaust gas recycle (EGR). With EGR of 15%, CRDi engine resulted in 12.6% lower brake thermal efficiency (BTE), 5.5% lower hydrocarbon (HC), 7.7% lower carbon monoxide (CO), 26% lower NOx at 80% load as compared to the unmodified diesel engine (CI mode).Originality/valueThe current research is an effort to study and evaluate the performance of CRDi engine in DF mode with diesel-H2 and BCPO-H2 fuel combinations with TRCC.