Performance optimization of a pine oil-fueled agricultural engine using grey - Taguchi approach

Limited stock of fossil fuel and increased environmental pollution are two major concerns related to a sustainable environment. Vehicular emissions play a significant role in environmental pollutions. Diesel engines are commonly used for transportation due to their higher thermal efficiency, emitting more harmful emissions. As fossils fuels are limited, it is required to find eco-friendly alternative fuels. Biodiesel has been proved a suitable alternative to diesel fuels. Various feedstocks have been used as an alternative to diesel, such as jatropha, mahua, sunflower, Karanja, neem, and waste cooking oil. However, the raw feedstock for these is also limited and very costly. In hilly areas, pine trees are readily available, which also causes fire hazards. Pine oil could be a possible alternative fuel for diesel engines to overcome this. The viscosity of pine oil is near to the diesel fuels, due to which it can replace diesel fuels. In the following analysis, various blends of pine oil with diesel were allowed to run, and performance was analyzed in a petite DI, constant speed, single-cylinder Diesel engine. P25, P50, P75, and P100 blends were used with variable loads and injection timings. Brake thermal efficiency and brake-specific fuel consumption were analyzed as performance parameters. The layout of experiments was decided with the help of an orthogonal array obtained from the Taguchi Technique. L16 table was selected for three parameters with levels of each after the experiments according to the given combination of variance (ANOVA). Finally, optimizing this optimization technique obtains values. GRG was improved by 3.24%.