Reduction of vibration and noise pollution from agricultural tractor engine using novel pine oil and soapnut oil methyl ester as fuel

Abstract

The exhaust emissions from automotive diesel engines are successfully controlled over the years by adopting different combustion strategies and after treatment devices. Whereas, the combustion induced vibration and noise which is one of the major polluting source in off-road vehicle engines were not yet optimized. In the present study, a twin cylinder, Simpson's S-217 tractor diesel engine was used to evaluate the performance, combustion, vibration and noise characteristics using biofuel blends. For this study, the blends of pine oil -soapnut oil biodiesel (P75SNB25), diesel -soapnut oil biodiesel (SNB20) and diesel were used as fuel. The pine oil used in the research was purchased and used in its neat form. The soapnut oil was extracted from the soapnut seeds by cold pressing method and trans-esteri ed in two stages using methanol and catalysts. The performance and combustion characteristics of the blend P75SNB25 was superior to diesel and the blend SNB20 was slightly inferior to diesel. For the blend P75SNB25 the amplitude of acceleration with respect to time was reduced by 19.48% and 11.58% at no load and full load respectively. For the blend SNB20 the amplitude of acceleration showed a reduction of 14.27% and 9.46% at no load and full load respectively in comparison with diesel operation. The noise emission for the blends P75SNB25 and SNB20 was decreased by a maximum of 2.34% at different engine loads compared to diesel operation.