Fuel 90 (2011) 19681979

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Fuel
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Experimental investigation on injection characteristics of bioethanoldiesel fuel and bioethanolbiodiesel blends

Eloisa Torres-Jimenez a, M. Pilar Dorado b, Breda Kegl c,
a

Dep. Mechanics and Mining Engineering, University of Jaen, C/Alfonso X el Sabio, 23700 Linares (Jaen), Spain Dep. of Chemical Physics and Applied Thermodynamics, EPS, Ed Leonardo da Vinci, Campus de Rabanales, Universidad de Cordoba, 14071 Cordoba, Spain c Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maribor, Smetanova 17, SI-2000 Maribor, Slovenia
b

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
This paper analyses the fuel injection characteristics of bioethanoldiesel fuel and bioethanolbiodiesel blends considered as fuel for diesel engines. Attention is focused on the injection characteristics which signicantly inuence the engine characteristics and subsequently the exhaust emissions. In this context the following injection characteristics have been investigated experimentally: fuelling, injection timing, injection delay, injection duration, mean injection rate, and injection pressure. The tested fuels were neat mineral diesel fuel, neat biodiesel made from rapeseed oil, bioethanol/diesel fuel and bioethanol/biodiesel blends up to 15% (v/v) bioethanol with an increment of 5%. The fuels blends were experimentally investigated in a fuel injection M system at rated condition (FL, 1100 rpm), peak torque (FL, 850 rpm), and maximum pump speed (1100 rpm) for different partial loads (PL 75% and PL 50%), at ambient temperature. It has been proven that for all operating regimens tested, the addition of bioethanol to biodiesel reduces fuelling, injection timing, injection duration, mean injection rate and maximum injection pressure and increases injection delay compared to pure biodiesel. Meanwhile, increasing bioethanol in diesel fuel shows no signicant variations or a slightly increase in fuelling, injection timing, injection duration, and mean injection rate and a decrease in injection delay and maximum injection pressure, compared to pure diesel fuel. The inuence of bioethanol in biodiesel is much more signicant that in diesel fuel; it has a benecial effect on biodiesel injection characteristics because bioethanol addition brings them nearer to the diesel fuel one and it is expected to decrease biodiesel NOx emissions. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 25 September 2010 Received in revised form 19 November 2010 Accepted 30 November 2010 Available online 14 December 2010 Keywords: Biodiesel Bioethanol Injection system Injection timing

1. Introduction Nowadays, the necessity of nding alternative fuels to replace progressively those produced from petroleum is generally accepted. The most common biofuels today are bioethanol and biodiesel. Ethanol can be produced from biomass by fermentation of sugar, by converting the starch content of biomass feedstocks into alcohol (bioethanol) or by hydration of ethylene which is obtained from petroleum and other sources. Biodiesel is produced by the transesterication of vegetable oil or animal fat feedstock, and it is the mostly used biofuel which can substitute diesel fuel totally or partially in a diesel engine. Ethanol usually replaces gasoline in petrol engines and biodiesel makes the same for diesel engines, but diesel fuel blended with low concentrations of ethanol can also run a diesel engine. An important advantage of biofuels is related to their oxygen content, which it is not present in fossil fuels like diesel. The oxy Corresponding author.
E-mail address: breda.kegl@uni-mb.si (B. Kegl). 0016-2361/$ - see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.fuel.2010.11.042

gen presence in biodiesel and ethanol represents a potential in reducing particulate emissions [1,2]. Furthermore, oxygen content reduces carbon monoxide (CO) and unburned hydrocarbon (HC) emissions [3] because this element favors a complete combustion and an increase in thermal efciency. Nowadays, many investigations are focused on the inuence of biodiesel and their blends with mineral diesel on engine performance and exhaust emissions, showing a slight decrease in engine power and an increase in NOx emissions [4,5]. To moderate the NOx emissions, several strategies have been proposed, depending on the fuel and injection system type [610]. Several studies have shown that biodiesel burns in a diesel engine with much less total hydrocarbons (THC), carbon monoxide (CO) and particulate matter (PM) in the exhaust, although there was an increase in nitrogen oxides (NOx) [5,1113]. It has been demonstrated that by introducing ethanol fuel by port injection, NOx and smoke opacity simultaneously decrease about 3585% compared to those of the neat biodieselfueled engines [14]. In case of ethanoldiesel blends, PM in exhaust also decreased substantially and a slight decrease was observed in NOx. The effect

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on CO and THC are less clear although both were still well below the regulated emissions limit [1517]. When using biodieseldiesel fuel blends and biodieselethanoldiesel fuel blends, it was found that CO and HC were signicantly reduced at high engine load, whereas NOx increased, compared to the use of diesel fuel [6,18]. New regulations require diesel engines to lower sulfur emissions considerably, making ethanoldiesel fuel blends and ethanolbiodiesel blends much more attractive as a practical fuel to use because ethanol and biodiesel have virtually no sulfur content. Finally, it has been demonstrated that ethanol addition to biodiesel reduces its main harmful emissions and improves brake thermal efciency compared to those of pure biodiesel, but emissions were still higher and brake thermal efciency lower than those of diesel fuel [19]. Fuel injection characteristics depend on both, the type of injection system and fuel properties [2024]. A signicant inuence of biodiesel combustion temperature on injection characteristics has already been demonstrated [25]. It is known that higher density, sound velocity and bulk modulus of fuel cause advanced injection timing in mechanically controlled in-line injection systems, thus increasing combustion temperature. This may be one of the reasons for increased NOx emission [8,26,27]. Fuel properties do not inuence the injection timing in electronically controlled common rail injection systems [28]. In spite of this, investigations show that the usage of biodiesel in common rail systems may also increase NOx [29]. Anyhow, the mechanically controlled in-line injection system is still widely used in heavy-duty engines. This justies the efforts to reduce harmful emissions by using various fuels in such a system. One of the main problems of blending two different fuels is that their chemical composition can lead to their separation. If a blend of various fuels separates after some time period it means that the concentration of each fuel injected into the cylinder may vary over the time. Because the engine management is optimized for a specic fuel, the engine characteristics will vary with respect to time. In a previous research, the authors demonstrated that bioethanolbiodiesel blends remain stable from 18 C up to 30 C [30]. Furthermore, cold weather properties, such as cloud point and pour point, are improved by adding bioethanol to biodiesel. The other properties are also improved or their variation is not significant with respect to diesel fuel. An exception is the ash point because all samples showed bioethanol ash point which is very low [31]. In case of ethanoldiesel fuel blends, the nonpolar hydrocarbons present in diesel fuel has no afnity with the polar ethanol, leading to phase separation [32]. Previous researches have presented various kinds of additives to avoid phase separation between diesel fuel and ethanol [18,3335]. In the present study, no stability additives have been used. In the effort to achieve the reduction of engine emissions and fuel consumption, while keeping other engine performances at an acceptable level, the injection system plays an important role. It is also possible to predict to some extent the engine characteristics on the basis of injection characteristics. Some important injection characteristics are injection pressure, injection duration, injection timing and fuelling. In general, mean injection pressure has to be as high as possible while keeping the maximal injection pressure at a low level and the injection timing inuences the harmful NOx emissions [7,20]. In this paper, the most important injection characteristics of bioethanoldiesel fuel and bioethanolbiodiesel blends are analyzed and compared to those of pure diesel fuel. Fuel injection characteristics properties like fuelling, injection timing, injection delay, injection duration, mean injection rate and pressure are tested at rated condition, which means full load (FL) and pump speed (1100 rpm), peak torque condition (FL, 850 rpm), and at

two partial loads (PL 75% and PL 50%) at pump speed of 1100 rpm at ambient temperature. Only samples up to 15% of bioethanol in diesel and in biodiesel were tested since we assume that higher bioethanol concentrations would show ignition problems when used to run a diesel engine; furthermore, the heating value would signicantly differ from that of a diesel fuel causing important reduction in engine power.

2. Tested fuels and their properties Injection characteristics of eight samples were determined. The tested samples were neat mineral diesel fuel (D100), 5% bioethanol/diesel fuel blend (v/v) (E5D95), 10% bioethanol/diesel fuel blend (v/v) (E10D90), 15% bioethanol/diesel fuel blend (v/v) (E15D85), neat biodiesel (B100), 5% bioethanol/biodiesel blend (v/v) (E5B95), 10% bioethanol/biodiesel blend (v/v) (E10B90), and 15% bioethanol/biodiesel blend (v/v) (E15B85). The fuel properties have a noticeable inuence on the response of the injection system. For this reason, in a previous study, we determined experimentally the most important physical and chemical properties of pure diesel fuel, bioethanoldiesel fuel blends, pure biodiesel, and bioethanolbiodiesel blends and their inuence on engine characteristics was also presented [36,31]. These properties are summarized in Tables 2 and 3. Bioethanol (from Carlo Erba Company, Milano Italy) was produced from the fermentation of sugars and its main properties are shown in Table 1. The diesel fuel (from Petrol d.d. Ljubljana Slovenia) was used without ow improver additives. Biodiesel (from Biogoriva d.o.o. Slovenia) was produced from rapeseed oil. According to Table 3, the purity of the tested biodiesel is guaranteed as the ester content is higher than the minimum value prescribed by the biodiesel standard EN 14214. The tested pure fuels are conforming to their respective standards for properties limitation; diesel fuel is conforming to European standard EN 590, pure biodiesel is conforming to EN 14214, and bioethanol satises ISO 9001 specications. The measurement of sound velocity in fuel is based on the principle of pressure wave propagation on a specied length of the high pressure (HP) tube, instrumented by two piezoelectric based pressure transducers, located at both ends of the tube. A small plunger-type pump was used to induce a pressure wave which was registered by both transducers and simultaneously acquired by a measuring system (NI 9234 placed in NI 9163). No ampliers were used. Fig. 1 shows characteristic pressure wave traces of both sensors. The sound velocity was measured at different pressures up to 700 bar for all tested neat fuels, bioethanoldiesel blends and bioethanolbiodiesel blends. Fig. 2 shows the dependence of fuel sound velocity on pressure. It can be observed that sound velocity decreases by decreasing pressure and/or by adding bioethanol. The lower bioethanol sound velocity, compared to other fuels tested, is caused by the lower bioethanol density, and consequently by the lower bulk modulus. According to this afrmation, biodiesel fuel shows the highest sound velocity and bioethanol the lowest one among the tested fuels.

Table 1 Bioethanol (C2H5OH) properties (ISO 9001). Property Minimum assay (purity) Boiling point Density 20 Water content Unit % (v/v) C kg/m3 % Specication >99.8 Min 78.3/max 78.8 Min 790/max 793 <0.2 Result 99.8 78.8 791 <0.2

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Table 2 Physical and chemical properties of diesel fuel and bioethanoldiesel fuel blends. Property Unit Limits (D100) EN 590 min/max Density at 15 C Cloud point Pour point CFPP Flash point Lubricity WS 1.4 Cetane index Sulfur content, WD-XRF Neat caloric value Total contamination Carbon residue FPT Pressure/volume Elemental analysis kg/m3 C C C C lm mg/kg MJ/kg mg/kg %(m/m) -kPa/ml (%w/w) 820/845 >55 max. 460 min. 46 max.10.0 max. 24 max. 0.30 Tested fuels D100 837.3 3 9 8 66.0 448.0 51.8 31.0 42.91 2 <0.01 1.02 20/300 86.13 C 13.87 H 0O 2.78 50 1a No undesirable components found E05D95 834.3 3 9 8 25.0 399.0 1.01 17/300 84.55 C 13.84 H 1.61 O 2.53 100 1a E10D90 831.7 19 12 7 25.0 406.0 1.01 13/300 82.94 C 13.80 H 3.26 O 2.31 130 1a E15D85 829.4 21 36 8 25.0 395.0 1.01 12/300 81.31 C 13.76 H 4.93 O 2.19 140 1a

Kinematic viscosity (40 C) Water content Corrosion Cu, 3 h at 50 C FT-Infrared analysis

mm2/s mg/kg Rating

2.4.5 max. 200 Class 1

Table 3 Physical and chemical properties of biodiesel and bioethanolbiodiesel blends. Property Unit Limits (B100) EN 14214 min/max Density 15 C CFPP Cloud point Pour point Flash point Lubricity WS 1.4 FPT Pressure/volume Element composition (CHN) Kinematic viscosity (40 C) Water content Corrosion Cu, 3 h at 50 C IR spectrum Neat caloric value Ester content Iodine number Acidity number Linolenic acid methyl ester Methanol content Phosphorus content Monoglycerides content Diglycerides content Triglycerides content Free glycerol Total glycerol Total contamination Sulfur content, WD-XRF kg/m3 C C C C lm kPa/ml 860/900 min 120 mm2/s mg/kg Rating MJ/kg % (m/m) g iodine/100 g mg KOH / g % (m/m) % (m/m) mg/kg % (m/m) % (m/m) % (m/m) % (m/m) % (m/m) mg/kg mg/kg 3.5/5 max. 500 Class 1 min. 96.5 max. 120 max. 0.5 max. 12.0 max. 0.20 max. 10.0 max. 0.8 max. 0.20 max. 0.20 max. 0.02 max. 0.25 max. 24 max. 10 Tested fuels B100 882.6 10 3 6 138.5 175 6.08 105/50 76.68%C 11.07% H 4.477 150 1a No undesirable component found 42.36 97.3 112 0.27 6.8 <0.01 <5 0.59 0.14 <0.05 0.006 0.176 14 5.8 E05B95 878.0 10 4 6 25.0 167 4.40 105/70 76.88%C 11.36%H 4.041 230 1a E10B90 873.5 9 5 9 25.0 161 2.90 105/110 77.03%C 11.31%H 3.575 250 1a E15B85 869.0 12 5 9 25.0 174 2.36 105/140 76.44%C 10.93%H 3.244 230 1a

Fig. 1. Principle of sound velocity measurement.

3. Fuel injection system and test procedure The eight samples were tested in a mechanically controlled fuel injection M system, which consist of a plunger-in-barrel assembly,

a high pressure (HP) tube, and an injector. The scheme of the experimentally investigated system, which includes the transducers for pressure, needle lift and injection timing determination, is shown in Fig. 3. The main specications of this system are given in Table 4. The injection M system was mounted on Fiedman-Maier type 12H100_h test bed for a conventional fuel injection pump. The test bench and fuel injection system were instrumented in order to measure basic parameters characteristics of system operation. A diaphragm-type pressure transducer (AVL 31DP 1200E) was applied at the high pressure pipe inow just behind the injection pipe. Its special-purpose four-element strain gage (full-bridge conguration) was connected to the National Instrument module

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Fig. 2. Sound velocity of fuels under various conditions.

Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of an in-line fuel injection M system.

Table 4 Test injection system main specications. Injection model Fuel injection pump type Pump plunger (diameter lift) Fuel tube (length diameter) Injection nozzle (number nozzle hole diameter) Maximal needle lift Start of delivery (pump injection timing) Direct injection system with wall distribution (M system) Bosh PES 6A 95D 410 LS 2542 9.5 mm 8 mm 1024 mm 1.8 mm 1 0.68 mm 0.3 mm 30 C ABTC

and the bridge is unbalanced. The output voltage is thus proportional to the core motion. The bridge amplier (HBM KWS 3085) was applied for bridge excitation and output voltage pickup. The high frequency of the excitation current enabled a satisfactory frequency response necessary for dynamic displacement measurement. The top dead center (TDC) position was measured by an optic sensor. A disk with a single cutout was attached to the pump shaft, and a light source with photo detector was applied to provide a TDC position signal. The injected fuel quantity was measured by collecting the injected fuel over 500 cycles into a test glass. A computer-aided measuring system was used to acquire electric signals from the applied sensors. The system incorporates a personal computer (Pentium III 600 MHz, 256 MB RAM) and a multifunction card (AT MIO 16 E2). Electric signals were conditioned by an SCXI data conditioning system. Differential analogue input signals were led to the module (SCXI-1520) which was used as a bridge amplier at the same time. This made a simultaneous measurement of all high speed variables possible. The multifunction card, data acquisition system, and application software are all products of National Instruments. LabVIEW software was used to build the computer applications for data acquisition, data analysis, and control algorithms. These applications were used to control the operation of the multifunction card (data acquisition, DC voltage output) and for data logging and postprocessing. The following parameters (variables) were measured:     Pressure pI (pressure transducer AVL 31DP 1200E). Pressure pII (piezoelectric transducer KISTLER 6227). Needle lift hn (variable-inductance sensor). Fuelling.

bridge amplier (SCXI-1520). A piezoelectric-type pressure transducer (Kistler 6227) with charge amplier Kistler was applied for the measurement of pressure traces within the high pressure tube just ahead of the injector. Its very high frequency response enabled the accurate dynamic measurement of pressure variation. A specially designed variable-inductance sensor was applied for needle lift pickup. An iron core was placed within two inductance coils and attached to the injector needle. The coils formed two legs of Wheatstone bridge which was excited by an alternating current of 6 V at 50,000 Hz. With the core in the null position, the inductance of the two coils is equal and the bridge is balanced. A core motion causes a proportional change in inductance of each coil,

It should be noted that throughout this paper it is assumed that the pump load is not determined by the fuelling but by the rack position. This means that at a single operating regime the use of various fuels will cause the fuelling to be slightly different. An operating regime is dened by load (rack position) and pump speed. For each regime, the pressure at the rst monitoring point of the fuel injection system pI and the pressure at the second monitoring point pII as well as the needle lift hn histories have been measured during the experiments. As an example, Fig. 4 shows the injection characteristics for E15D85 at peak torque condition, and also for E15B85 at PL 50% and at pump speed of 1100 rpm. From those graphics, the peak

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Fig. 4. Pressures pI and pII and needle lift hn histories.

pressures pI and pII can be determined. Here, it has to be pointed out that the pressure history pII is not the actual injection pressure history. This is because pII is measured at the end of the HP tube before the injector and not in front of the nozzle hole. The difference is, therefore, due to the pressure wave propagation in the injector and due the delay, caused by the distance between the injector inow and outow (nozzle hole). For this reason, the start of injection (of needle lifting) does not coincides with the 175 bar of pressure pII (175 bar is the needle opening pressure). Likewise, the moment of needle closing does not coincide with the needle closing pressure of pII. Despite this, pressure pII offers a good approximation to the injection pressure in the sense that the fuel inuence on the injection pressure is well reected in fuel inuence on pII. Furthermore, the injection duration and injection timing as well as injection delay at the known angle of the start of fuel delivery (injection pump timing) can be determined also. 4. Fuel inuence The experiments were performed for neat diesel D100, neat biodiesel B100, and their blends with bioethanol up to 15% at different operating regimes, at ambient temperature (20 C) and a constant pump injection timing of 30 of crankshaft angle before top dead center (CA BTC). Experimental results at rated condition (FL, 1100 rpm) are presented in Figs. 5 and 6 for D100, E15D85, B100, and E15B85 fuels. According to Fig. 5, the addition of bioethanol decreases the maximal injection pressure pII. It is also evident that maximal pressure

pII decreases more, when bioethanol is added to biodiesel than to diesel fuel. Furthermore, the history of pressure pII of E15B85 blend is very close to those of neat D100. From Fig. 6, where the needle lift history is shown, it can be observed that biodiesel injection timing is advanced with respect to that of diesel fuel and biodiesel injection duration is longer. The addition of bioethanol retards the injection timing in diesel and biodiesel fuel. It has to be pointed out that this inuence is more signicant in biodiesel. Furthermore, the needle lift history of E15B85 is practically the same as that of D100. This means that the injection timing, injection duration, and injection delay of E15B85 is very close to those of D100. The inuence of bioethanol in the biodiesel and diesel fuels at peak torque condition is similar to that obtained at rated condition. From Figs. 7 and 8, the injection characteristics comparison conrms that E15B85 blend gives very close injection system behavior to D100. To get a better understanding of the inuence of bioethanol content in the diesel and biodiesel fuels on injection characteristics, the most important injection characteristics of E05D95, E10D90, E15D85, B100, E05B95, E10B90, E15B85 are compared to those of neat D100. Throughout this paper, the term relative will be used to emphasize that the actual value of the parameter is divided by the corresponding parameter for D100. 4.1. Fuelling The comparison of relative fuelling at various operating regimes is presented in Fig. 9. At constant pump injection timing and a

FL 1100 rpm

Fig. 5. Fuel inuence on pressure pII at rated condition.

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FL 1100 rpm

Fig. 6. Fuel inuence on needle lift hn at rated condition.

FL 850 rpm

Fig. 7. Fuel inuence on pressure pII at peak torque condition.

FL 850 rpm

Fig. 8. Fuel inuence on needle lift hn at peak torque condition.

constant rack position, the fuelling of B100, bioethanoldiesel fuel and bioethanolbiodiesel blends is higher or equal than those of D100. B100 always shows the highest fuelling at all tested operating regimes. One can observe no signicant changes or a slightly increase in fuelling with increased bioethanol content in diesel fuel, meanwhile fuelling decreases for higher concentration of bioethanol in biodiesel. In all cases tested, the bioethanol addition inuence on fuelling is more evident in biodiesel than in diesel fuel. At all tested operating regimes, the fuelling obtained with E15B85 closes to those of D100 fuel. Fuelling variation is caused by various densities and viscosities of the samples. The higher fuelling of B100 is a consequence of its higher bulk modulus and its higher kinematic viscosity. Injection timing and injection duration are directly related to fuelling. Next sections will show how those physical properties modify these injection characteristics.

4.2. Injection timing Injection timing or start of injection is a very important parameter that signicantly inuences all engines characteristics [37,38] due to the fact that this factor inuences the mixing quality of the airfuel mixture and, consequently, the combustion process and harmful emissions. The deviations in density and consequently in bulk modulus, which affects the speed of sound, modify the injection timing. According to this it is expected that higher concentrations of bioethanol will cause retarded injection timing. Nevertheless, viscosity also affects injection timing. Lower viscosity means lower friction while the fuel travels through the high pressure (HP) tube and through the nozzle, leading to an easier propagation and consequently to an advanced injection timing. According to Fig. 10 we can say that the lower density of bioethanol, compared to that of biodiesel [31], is the predominant

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Fig. 9. Relative fuelling using different fuels at different operation regimes.

property that affects the injection timing because the bioethanol addition to biodiesel leads to retard injection timing. In case of bioethanoldiesel fuel blends, the low tested bioethanol concentration leads to no signicant variations or a slightly increase in injection timing, which can be caused by the lower viscosity of bioethanol compared to that of diesel fuel [36]. Nevertheless this tendency is not so clear. As an example, we can compare the needle lift history, Fig. 6, and injection timing, Fig. 10, at rated condition (FL, 1100 rpm). From Fig. 10 one can observe that E15D85 leads to advance injection timing, and this is conrmed in Fig. 6 also. On the other hand, from Fig. 6, one can observe that after the earlier start of needle opening by E15D85 with respect to D100, in the central part of the needle opening, E15D85 leads to retard needle lift curve. It is clearly evident that the maximal needle lift is reached earlier by D100 then by E15D85, Fig. 6. The bioethanol addition to diesel fuel means that the tendency of the needle lift curve changes after injection timing (Fig. 10). The injection timing behavior could be the result of the interaction of viscosity and density. Due to the fact that injection timing is advanced for biodiesel with respect to diesel fuel [3941], adding bioethanol to biodiesel have the advantage of bringing it nearer to the diesel fuel. At rated condition, a low concentration of bioethanol causes biodiesel to reach diesel fuel injection timing, meanwhile at other tested operating regimes, higher contents of bioethanol in the biodiesel are needed. According to a previous study [41], with the advanced injection timing of biodiesel the pressure in the cylinder increases and the NOx emissions increase also. So, from the results obtained, we can expect that the addition of bioethanol to biodiesel offers a possibility to reduce NOx emissions, because the injection timing is retarded. Nevertheless and for the same reason, it could be expected that NOx emissions will be higher in case of bioethanoldiesel fuel blends, moreover this increment would be also supported by the

enhanced combustion efciency, provided by the bioethanol oxygen content. 4.3. Injection delay When using bioethanolbiodiesel fuel blends, the already mentioned retarded injection timing with respect to the pure biodiesel, means that the injection delay (time interval between the start of delivery and the start of injection) becomes gradually higher (see Fig. 11). Due to the higher density, viscosity and bulk modulus of biodiesel compared to those of diesel fuel, the injection delay changes, but the addition of bioethanol decreases that difference, bringing injection delay close to that of diesel fuel. A previous study, based on testing a high pressure injection system (common rail system), revealed a shorter injection delay for increasing ethanol in biodiesel when using a blend containing 20% anhydrous ethanol and 80% biodiesel by volume [42]. These results are in contrast to those obtained in this study (where a mechanically controlled in-line pump has been tested), so it can be observed that the type of injection system, together with injection pressure, inuence the injection delay signicantly. In general, the diagrams of Fig. 11 show that by adding bioethanol injection delay of biodiesel increases meanwhile the delay decreases or has no signicant inuence for diesel fuel. These results are in concordance with the tendency derived from injection timing, Fig. 10. 4.4. Injection duration At tested partial loads, the injection duration of all tested fuels is higher than that of D100 (Fig. 12). At all operating regimes, the tendency shows that an increment of bioethanol concentration in biodiesel leads to decreased injection duration; meanwhile the

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Fig. 10. Relative injection timing using different fuels at different operation regimes.

Fig. 11. Relative injection delay using different fuels at different operation regimes.

duration increases or it does not change substantially when bioethanol is added to diesel fuel. The advanced injection timing, caused

by the addition of bioethanol to diesel fuel, leads to longer injection duration. Meanwhile, the retarded injection timing of

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Fig. 12. Relative injection duration using different fuels at different operation regimes.

bioethanolbiodiesel blends leads to decrease injection duration. The results show that the injection duration of pure biodiesel is always higher than that of diesel fuel. This result is in accordance with that obtained by Radu et al. [39] who burnt waste oil biodiesel in a diesel engine. At tested full load operating regimes, the content of 10% bioethanol or less in the biodiesel gives the injection duration very close to that obtained with D100. It seems that at partial loads higher content of bioethanol in biodiesel is needed to obtain the fuel injection duration of D100. 4.5. Mean injection rate Mean injection rates at various regimes are shown in Fig. 13. In most cases, for bioethanoldiesel fuel blends the variation of mean injection rate is equal or less than 1% compared to that of D100, so it can be said that bioethanol addition to diesel fuel does not modify substantially this injection characteristic. In case of diesel fuel blends, the higher fuelling obtained by bioethanol addition leads to slightly increase mean injection rate. The decreasing fuelling, caused by bioethanol addition in biodiesel, shows the opposite tendency. For bioethanoldiesel fuel blends, the higher fuelling is compensated by the longer injection duration resulting in almost the same mean injection rate in most of the cases studied, meanwhile for biodiesel blends the lower fuelling has more inuence on mean injection rate than the shorter injection duration caused by bioethanol addition. In all cases tested the inuence of bioethanol addition on mean injection rate is more evident in biodiesel than in diesel fuel. With higher content of bioethanol in biodiesel, the mean injection rate decreases. However, even by using E15B85 blend the mean injection rate is higher than that of D100. Experimental results of pII at different operating regimens are presented in Fig. 14. In general, these diagrams show that the

maximum pressure pII decreases with increasing bioethanol content in biodiesel, meanwhile the variation of this injection characteristic is not signicant or slightly lower when bioethanol is added to diesel fuel. At peak torque condition, the inuence of bioethanol content in biodiesel is even more evident. The difference between the injection pressures of different fuels arises due to different fuel density, viscosity, bulk modulus, and sound velocity. The maximum pressure pII for bioethanolbiodiesel blends is always somewhat higher than that for diesel fuel. Lower maximum injection pressure is expected to have a benecial effect on NOx emissions. In all cases tested, the inuence of bioethanol addition on maximum pressure pII is more evident for biodiesel than for diesel fuel, and the blend E15B85 gives the best results because they are the closest to those of diesel fuel. 5. Conclusions In the present study, fuel injection characteristics of bioethanoldiesel fuel and bioethanolbiodiesel blends have been experimentally studied with the aim of nding the variations in those parameters compared to their respective pure fuel values (diesel fuel or biodiesel), and to determine their possible commercial usage which would lead to cleaner emissions and lower dependence on petroleum products. The main conclusions, related to the inuence of various concentrations up to 15% bioethanol in diesel fuel and in biodiesel on the main characteristics of an in-line injection system, are summarized as follows: 1. For all injection characteristics studied, the inuence of bioethanol in biodiesel is much more signicant that in diesel fuel, and it has a benecial effect from the point of view of biodiesel injection characteristics because bioethanol addition brings

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Fig. 13. Relative mean injection rate using different fuels at different operation regimes.

Fig. 14. Relative maximum injection pressure pII using different fuels at different operation regimes.

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them nearer to these of diesel fuel. It seems that the E15B85 blend gives the best results because in most operating regimes its injection characteristics are the closest to those of diesel fuel or they are even better. B100 shows the highest fuelling at all operating conditions tested. Biodiesel fuelling decreases by bioethanol addition. Bioethanol addition does not modify substantially diesel fuel fuelling or increases it just slightly. Fuelling variation is a consequence of various densities and viscosities of tested fuels. The higher bulk modulus and kinematic viscosity of biodiesel leads to increase fuelling. Injection timing and consequently injection delay are signicantly inuenced by the type of injection system (in-line or common rail injection system). When using a low pressure injection system (no common rail), injection timing of biodiesel is retarded by bioethanol addition and injection delay increases due to lower density of bioethanol. The variation in injection timing caused by bioethanol addition is expected to decrease biodiesel NOx emissions. Injection timing is advanced slightly when increasing bioethanol content in diesel fuel and injection delay decreases due to bioethanol lower viscosity. An increment of bioethanol concentration in biodiesel leads to a decrement in injection duration, meanwhile the duration does not change or slightly increases when bioethanol is added to diesel fuel. In general, mean injection rate varies almost negligible when bioethanol is added to diesel fuel because higher fuelling is compensated by longer injection duration. For biodiesel blends, the lower fuelling has more inuence than the shorter injection duration caused by bioethanol addition which leads to a decrease in mean injection rate. In most cases studied, bioethanol addition in biodiesel decreases maximum injection pressure more than bioethanol addition in diesel fuel. In case of bioethanolbiodiesel blends it is expected that bioethanol offers a possibility to reduce NOx emissions with respect to neat biodiesel. Based on the injection characteristics tested, blends up to 15% bioethanol in diesel fuel and 15% bioethanol in biodiesel can be recommended as fuel for diesel engines, provided that further engine performance tests support this conclusion.

Acknowledgment This research was supported by the European Communitys Sixth Framework Programme in the scope of the Civitas II Mobilis Project. Authors are also grateful for the Provision of a Research Mobility Grant to E. Torres-Jimenez from the Junta de Andaluca, Spain IAC09-II-5387. References
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