International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Developments [ICRAMID - 2014]

Optimization of Performance Parameters of a

CI engine Fueled with Neem Biodiesel using
Taguchi Technique
S. Arunprasad

T. Balusamy

Department of Production Engineering,

Sri Sairam Engineering College,
Chennai 44, India.
Research Scholar,
Anna University, Chennai 25.
sarunprasad75@gmail.com

Department of Mechanical Engineering,

Government college of Engineering,
Salem-11, India.
balusamyt@gmail.com

Abstract- The research is aimed to optimise the engine

parameters by using biodiesel as a fuel. Neem oil is used as a
bio diesel in CI engine which is produced by
transesterification process. Taguchi optimization technique
was used to get optimum level of parameters such as brake
thermal efficiency (BTHE), indicated thermal efficiency
(ITHE) and specific fuel consumption (SFC). Experiments
were conducted with neem oil biodiesel blends and diesel
value were compared with these results and presented in this
paper. The result clearly shows that blend B60, compression
ratio 18:1 and 6 Kg load was the optimum parameters.
Keywords:
Neem biodiesel; CI engine; performance;
Taguchi technique;
I.

INTRODUCTION

The major reasons for the amelioration of alternative

fuels are due to increased fuel price, increased the
number of vehicles and depleting nature of petroleum
resources. More number of alternative fuels were found
and tested in the existing engines. Now a day, research
is perpetual to find the suitable alternative. Biofuels are
identified as alternative fuels and are having few
undesirable fuel characteristics which are not permitting
them to replace the existing petro fuel completely [2].
However, the many techniques used by the researchers
are providing good solution to be applied to larger
fraction of replacing fuel in the existing engine. Bio
fuels are renewable, eco-friendly [3] and are obtained
from bio resources such as animal wastes and plants. In
the present study, we have used the neem oil as the
biodiesel. However, the blended form of the neem oil
and diesel is used in the process in place of the standard
diesel to get good performance when compared to the
diesel.
The alternative fuels are tested in the existing
engines that operate on diesel as fuel. These engines are
designed particularly for alternative fuels and optimised.
When new fuel is used in this engine the performance
may not be optimum. The parameters load and
compression ratio must be changed for the new fuel.
This experiment involves three parameters such as load,
compression ratio and blend composition. The engine
parameters are optimised by Taguchi technique in
minimum number of trials. Taguchi technique uses the
factor called signal to noise ratio (SNR) for measuring
the quality characteristics [1]. There are three SNR that

are in practice. To find the higher BTHE, ITHE the

higher-the-better SNR and to find the lower SFC ,
lesser- the- better SNR was used . The Taguchi
technique was designed by a statistical software called
MINITAB Release 16 to simplify the Taguchi
procedure and results. After finding the optimum
parameters, a full experiment was conducted using the
various blends at the optimum engine setting. The
results of this experiment were compared with diesel.
Anya uzo anya et.al[5] investigated that the effect
of various methanol and acid concentration on free fatty
acid(FFA) content and optimized values were obtained.
Aransiola et.al.[6] investigated the effect of operating
variables and performance of an internal combustion
engine. They reported that neem oil has to treated for
two stage process such as esterification followed by
transesterification. Goutam Pohit et.al.[8] investigated
the effect of Karanja oil methyl ester diesel fuel on
C.I.engine performance and exhaust emissions and the
blend B50 was found better by Grey-Taguchi method.
Sivaramakrishnan et.al.[7] investigated the effects of
engine parameters on the performance and emission
characteristics by Taguchi method and found that the
CR was most significant parameter followed by
Injection Timing. Sivalakshmi et.al.[4] investigated
diesel engine fuelled with Neem oil (NeO) and its
methyl esters (NOME) and found the results that
combustion duration is higher for NeO as compared to
NOME. In addition, the performance and combustion
characteristics of NOME were significantly improved.
II.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

There are two experimental setups considered

for this investigation. The first one is biodiesel
production setup and other one is engine setup
III.

BIODIESEL PRODUCTION SETUP

The process setup consists of the three necked

jar along with the stirrer attachment and it rotates at the
constant speed. This flask is placed on the heater which
heats up oil during process. After the process is over the
oil is placed for separation in separating funnel. This is
the major setup for the biodiesel production process.

ISBN 978-93-80609-17-1
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International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Developments [ICRAMID - 2014]

IV.

EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

The engine setup used is a single cylinder, four

stroke variable compression ratio CI engine. The
compression ratio is varied between the range of 12 to
18:1. The performance values of engine can be obtained
by a dynamometer which is connected to the computer.
The different biodiesel blend is used in the engine for
getting the performance value. The properties of
biodiesel blends are shown in Table 1.

Table 4. Value of SNR for BTHE

Load
(Kg)
2
2
2
4
4
4
6
6
6

Table.1 Properties of biodiesel blends

S.No

Parameters
B20

1
2
3
4

Calorific Value
39580
[KJ/Kg]
Density
0.8227
[gm/cc]
Fire point [C]
62
Kinematic viscosity
3.2
[cSt]

Results
B40

B60

38794

38250

0.8331

0.8421

64

76

4.5

Blend
(%)
20
40
60
20
40
60
20
40
60

Compression
ratio (r)
16
17
18
17
18
16
18
16
17

BTHE
9.52
11.84
12.88
18.12
19.24
17.65
24.75
23.83
24.09

BTHE
SNR
19.5727
21.4670
22.1983
25.1632
25.6841
24.9349
27.8715
27.5425
27.6367

From Fig. 1, the highest value of all graph that

provides the highest SNR is considered as the optimum
parameter. The optimum value is obtained from the
SNR graph. It is shown in Table 5. These optimum
parameters from the SNR graph are used for
experimentation. The above procedure is repeated to
find out the optimum value of ITHE and SFC.

5.6

Main Effects Plot for SN ratios

V.

Data Means

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Load

28

This experimental work uses three parameters

tested in three stages. Since the parameters are
independent, the interactions between the parameters
can be omitted. To design Taguchi experiment, L9
orthogonal array were used. This array consists of nine
rows and three columns. The factors and stages for
experiment are given in Table 2. The table 3 shows L9
orthogonal array for experiments. This value is used in
the MINITAB for further processing. By using this value
in MINITAB, the SNR value and the SNR graph were
obtained. The SNR value are shown in Table 4.

Blend

Mean of SN ratios

26
24
22
2

20

40

60

Compression ratio

28
26
24
22
16

17

18

Signal-to-noise: Larger is better

Fig. 1. SNR graph for BTHE

Table 5. Optimum value of parameters

Table 2. Factors and stages for experiment

Factors
Load
Blend
Compression
Ratio

Units
Kg
%
r

Stage 1
2
20
16:1

Stage2
4
40
17:1

Stage3
6
60
18:1

Blend (%)

2
2
2
4
4
4
6
6
6

20
40
60
20
40
60
20
40
60

Value

Load

6 Kg

Blend

B60

Compression
Ratio

Table 3. L9 Orthogonal Array for Experiments

Load (Kg)

Parameters

Compression
Ratio(r)
16
17
18
17
18
16
18
16
17

VI.

18:1

EXPERIMENT ON OPTIMUM BLEND

The experiment was conducted for the optimum

parameters obtained from Taguchi technique and its
results were noted and compared with diesel value.
VII.

BRAKE THERMAL EFFICIENCY

Using a load of 6 Kg and compression ratio 18:1,an

increase of 6.502% BTHE from the reference fuel was
obtained for B60 blend. This is shown in Fig.2.The
increase from diesel value of 19.948 to B60 blend value
of 26.45 could be due to the occupancy of volatile neem
oil in the blend. This could attribute to better
performance of B60 than diesel.

ISBN 978-93-80609-17-1
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International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Developments [ICRAMID - 2014]

Fig. 4. Load Vs Specific Fuel Consumption

Fig. 2. Load Vs Brake Thermal Efficiency

VIII.

INDICATED THERMAL EFFICIENCY

X.

From Fig. 3, the optimal value obtained from the

experiment, the higher indicated thermal efficiency is
obtained by the load of 6Kg of B60 blend and
compression ratio of 18:1. The maximum Indicated
thermal efficiency is 61.74 for neem oil blend and diesel
is 47.514 which is 14.226 % higher than diesel.

The following has been concluded based on the

experiment conducted on a diesel engine using neem
biodiesel.
1. The B60 blend operated with load 6 Kg and
compression ratio 18:1 was found to work
satisfactorily and Taguchi technique showed
optimum parameters.
2. An increase of brake thermal efficiency by 6.502
than the diesel value was shown on taking a
blend of diesel fuel with a concentration of 60 %
neem biodiesel.
3. Comparatively there is a higher value of
indicated thermal efficiency of about 14.226 was
found while working with the optimized value.
4. The specific fuel consumption of biodiesel was
found 0.14 lesser than diesel value.
XI.
[1]

Fig. 3. Load Vs Indicated Thermal Efficiency

IX.

CONCLUSION

SPECIFIC FUEL CONSUMPTION

The Fig. 4 shows that B60 blend have SFC less

than diesel. It is due to the blend property of neem oil
and its viscosity which makes the lesser fuel
consumption. The lower specific fuel consumption is
obtained from the biodiesel is 0.27 and diesel is 0.41.
The specific fuel consumption of biodiesel was found 0.14
lesser than diesel value.

REFERENCES

T.Ganapathy,K.Murugesan,R.P.Gakkhar.(2009),
Performance optimization of jetropha
biodiesel engine model using taguchi approach
(2009),Applied Energy,pp2476-2486

[2] Devan.P.K, and Mahalakshmi.N.V. (2010).

Combustion, Emission and Performance
Characteristics of Diesel engine Fueled with
Eucalyptus oil with an Ignition Enhancer,
International Journal of Green Energy, Energy and
Environment, Vol.1, No.1, April 2010,
pp. 40-49.
[3] Robert J. Last, Micheal Kruger, Manfred
Durnholz. (1995). Emissions and Performance
Characteristics of A 4-Stroke, Direct Injected
Diesel Engine Fueled With Blends of Biodiesel
and Low Sulfer Diesel Fuel, SAE Trans., 950054,
pp 1-13.
[4]

ISBN 978-93-80609-17-1
179

Sivanathan Sivalakshmi and Tangavel Balusamy

(2011) Experimiental Investigation on a

International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Developments [ICRAMID - 2014]

diesel engine fuelled with neem oil and its methyl

ester, Thermal science, Vol. 15, No. 4, pp
1193-1204.
[5] Anya uzo Anya,Nwobia Noelle Chioma and
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2(4)21-28,2012
[6] Aransiola,EF.,Betiku,E.,Ikhuomoregbe
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Sivaramakrishnan Kaliamoorthy, and Ravikumar

Paramasivam ,Investigation on performance
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[8] Goutam Pohit and Dipten Misra (2012)

Optimization of Performance and Emission
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Engineering Volume, Article ID 915357.

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