Combustion and Emission Characteristics of a Diesel Engine Fueled with Diesel–Rocket Propellant-3 Wide Distillation Blended Fuels

Abstract

In this work, three diesel–rocket propellant-3 wide distillation blended fuels (WDBF) including D80K20 [80% diesel and 20% rocket propellant-3 (RP3) by volume], D60K40, and D40K60 were prepared. The combustion and emission characteristics of neat diesel D100, D80K20, D60K40, and D40K60 were investigated in a single-cylinder diesel engine at four loads. In-cylinder pressure, fuel consumption, as well as all four emissions were experimentally measured. The results showed that the addition of RP3 in the WDBF led to longer ignition delay, shorter combustion duration, higher peak heat release rate (PHRR), and larger cumulative heat released percentage of premixed combustion phase; however, the values of maximum in-cylinder pressure and brake thermal efficiency (BTE) remained almost the same. In addition, the cyclic variations represented by the coefficient of variation (COV) of indicated mean effective pressure (IMEP) became larger especially at low load conditions. In terms of engine emissions, the soot emissions remarkably reduced, while the NOx emissions increased slightly. The total hydrocarbon (THC) emissions increased at four loads. The CO emissions increased at light loads and decreased at high loads.