Challagulla, Siddhartha (2018) The effect of adding sunflower oil and alcohol as renewable endives to diesel fuel on diesel engine performance. Coursework Masters thesis, University of Southern Queensland. (Unpublished)
Abstract
Protecting the decreasing level of fossil fuels is one of the major challenges faced by engineers in the present generation. Mixing sunflower oil and alcohol as bio-fuel with diesel fuel at a definite proportion is an eye-opening hypothesis in the perspective of investigating an alternative fuel. Three different blends of fuels containing 10% sunflower oil, 10% ethanol and 80% diesel (SF10E10D80) as one blend, 20% sunflower oil and 80% diesel (SF20D80) as second blend and 100% conventional diesel (D100) in separate were tested, analysed and their performance parameters are determined and compared. In important, both in-cylinder pressure and engine vibrations of the engines were recorded, and the information was statistically analysed that identified the blend with good combustion characteristics. The specific fuel consumption of SF20D80 was found higher than conventional diesel (D100) with a difference of 13.8% in average and 9% higher than SF10E10D80 under all engine speeds. Both the torque and brake power SF20D80 blend were higher than the torque produced by D100 at all three engine speeds. The top most torque produced by SF20D80 is 14.3 N-m at 2350 RPM engine speed and the top most brake power stands 4 kW at 2900 RPM engine speed. The engine torque increased proportionally with reduction in engine speeds ranges from 2350 RPM -3700 RPM. The exhaust temperatures of SF20D80 blend were moreover like D100 with a difference of 3% in average. The exhaust temperatures of SF20D80, D100 and SF10E10D80 are approximately equal except with few deviations under engine speeds of 2900 RPM and 2350 RPM engine speeds. The investigations proved that the performance of sunflower biofuel blends is recognizable when compared with conventional diesel fuel. In addition, the relation between peak cylinder pressure and crank positions of the engine for SF20D80 and D100 blends were compared and the relationship between cylinder pressure and engine vibrations were established. The SF20D80 blend produced higher cylinder pressure in average of three tested blends at all three engine speeds. The peak pressure of all blends are near to the TDC at lower engine speeds of 2350 RPM and this distance increased with the increase in engine speed. The magnitude of vibration accelerations was almost same for D100 and SF20D80 at lower engine speeds and this vibration were averagely higher than D100 and SF10E10D80 at all engine speeds. Under all engine speed conditions, the vibrations produced by SF10E10D80 is found lesser than D100 and SF20D80.
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| Item Type: | Thesis (Non-Research) (Coursework Masters) |
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| Item Status: | Live Archive |
| Additional Information: | Current UniSQ staff and students can request access to this thesis. Please email research.repository@unisq.edu.au with a subject line of SEAR thesis request and provide: Name of the thesis requested and Your name and UniSQ email address. |
| Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | Current - Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences - No Department (1 Jul 2013 -) |
| Supervisors: | Al-Lwayzy, Saddam Hussen; Saleh, Khalid |
| Qualification: | Master of Engineering Sciences (Mechanical Engineering) |
| Date Deposited: | 15 Jul 2026 05:24 |
| Last Modified: | 15 Jul 2026 05:31 |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | bio-fuel, diesel fuel, sunflower oil, alcohol, ethanol, SF10E10D80, SF20D80, D100 |
| URI: | https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/53238 |
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