An experimental study of the dual-fuel performance of a small compression ignition diesel engine operating with three gaseous fuels

A dual-fuel engine is a compression ignition (CI) engine where the primary gaseous fuel source is premixed with air as it enters the combustion chamber. This homogenous mixture is ignited by a small quantity of diesel, the ‘pilot’, that is injected towards the end of the compression stroke. In the present study, a direct-injection CI engine, was fuelled with three different gaseous fuels: methane, propane, and butane. The engine performance at various gaseous concentrations was recorded at 1500 r/min and quarter, half, and three-quarters relative to full a load of 18.7 kW. In order to investigate the combustion performance, a novel three-zone heat release rate analysis was applied to the data. The resulting heat release rate data are used to aid understanding of the performance characteristics of the engine in dual-fuel mode.

Data are presented for the heat release rates, effects of engine load and speed, brake specific energy consumption of the engine, and combustion phasing of the three different primary gaseous fuels.

Methane permitted the maximum energy substitution, relative to diesel, and yielded the most significant reductions in CO₂. However, propane also had significant reductions in CO₂ but had an increased diffusional combustion stage which may lend itself to the modern high-speed direct-injection engine.