Fuel 184 (2016) 518526

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Fuel
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Full Length Article

Optimization of biodiesel percentage in fuel mixture and engine

operating conditions for diesel engine performance and emission
characteristics by Artificial Bees Colony Algorithm
Alireza Shirneshan a,, Bahram Hosseinzadeh Samani b, Barat Ghobadian c
a
b
c

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran
Department of Mechanical Engineering of Biosystem, Shahrekord University, Shahrekord, Iran
Department of Mechanics of Biosystem Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 26 August 2015
Received in revised form 10 March 2016
Accepted 23 June 2016
Available online 20 July 2016
Keywords:
Biodiesel
Artificial Bees Colony
Emission characteristics
Engine performance

a b s t r a c t
Recently, biofuels mostly oxygenated diesel fuels are receiving more attention to use in diesel engines
due to fossil fuels depletion and the environmental degradation. The objective of this research is using
Artificial Bees Colony Algorithm approach to optimize engine performance and emission characteristics
by determine optimize condition of biodiesel percentage in fuel mixture (biodiesel and diesel fuel No. 2),
engine speed and engine load. The results of optimization showed that amount of biodiesel percentage,
engine speed and load were 85.63%, 2208 rpm, 97% respectively. At the optimum point, the values of
power, torque, BSFC, CO, HC and NOx were obtained equal to 63 kW, 298 N
m, 202.85 g/kW
h, 0.012%,
88 ppm and 560 ppm respectively. This finding proves that ABC algorithm can estimate the optimum
point in engine performance with high accuracy.
2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In recent years, biofuels have received significant attention as
the possible renewable alternative fuels due to fossil fuels depletion and the environmental degradation [1]. Biodiesel as an alternative fuel of diesel is renewable, biodegradable, oxygenated and
has almost very close property to that of diesel fuel. Biodiesel
can be produced from various vegetable oils, waste cooking oils
and animal fats. Many researches pointed out it can significantly
reduce toxic emissions and overall life cycle emission of green
house gas from the engine when burned as a fuel [2].
Many researchers have investigated the engine performances
and its emissions when using biodiesel that most of them agreed
that, with biodiesel, engine power and torque will decrease due
to the loss of heating value of biodiesel [35]. However, some
results showed some fluctuation [6,7]. It was reported by some
researchers that there was no significant difference in engine
power between pure biodiesel and diesel because of biodiesel
power recovery [8,9]. Of course, some authors reported that there
were unexpected increases in power or torque of engine for pure
biodiesel [10,11]. Although results showed similar trends of engine

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: arshirneshan@yahoo.com (A. Shirneshan).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2016.06.117
0016-2361/ 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

power performance with load or speed for biodiesel and diesel

engine fuelled [9,12].
For BSFC, most of researchers [1317] agreed that the fuel consumption of an engine fuelled with biodiesel becomes higher when
compared the blends with different content biodiesel due to the
lower heating value and higher density of biodiesel. The results
of some investigations [15,18] showed that, with increasing biodiesel percentage in fuel mixture, engine fuel consumption will
increase. Although a few researchers [9,11,19] believed that there
existed effect of biodiesel content on BSFC, they found no similar
trend and observed that the effect of the blend(s) with certain
content biodiesel might be highlighted. Of course, it was shown
an opposite trend by a few authors [2022]. They reported that fuel
consumption was reduced for biodiesel blends compared to net
diesel. A few other researchers [23,24] found no significant
difference between pure biodiesel and diesel on BSFC. Several
researchers reported the more biodiesel content causes the higher
decrease in the BSFC with increase in load [15,16,25]. In addition, it
was reported that the increase in BSFC values at full load was
higher than those at partial loads for biodiesel compared to diesel
[26]. And also the BSFC increased with the increase in engine speed
as stated by some authors [27,28].
Biodiesel fuel has many effects on diesel engine emissions. Regulated emissions such as nitrogen oxide (NOx), carbon monoxide
(CO), unburned hydrocarbon (HC) and particulate matter (PM) or

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A. Shirneshan et al. / Fuel 184 (2016) 518526

smoke number are the main kinds of emissions in the exhaust of

diesel engines [29].
Many researchers reported over a 50% mean reduction in HC
emissions when using pure biodiesel compared to petroleum diesel fuel [8,30,31]. However, a few studies have shown that there
are either increases or no significant differences in the HC emissions of diesel engines using biodiesel instead of diesel [32,33].
There are inconsistent conclusions about Effect of engine load on
HC emissions for biodiesel. Some authors [12,34,35] reported
experimentally that HC emissions increase when engine load
increase. On the contrary, Tan et al. [36] found that the HC emissions for biodiesel reduce as load increases. In addition, some
authors [10,37] observed that a greater decrease in HC emissions
of biodiesel happens at low engine load, but According to the most
of papers, it is a common trend that the replacement diesel fuel by
pure biodiesel results in reduction in CO emissions
[13,28,30,31,39,40]. The authors pointed out reduced CO emissions
were maintained, probably, thanks to the oxygen inherently present in the biodiesel, which makes it easier to be burnt at higher
temperature in the cylinder. Nevertheless, a few studies have
shown CO emissions of biodiesel fuel are higher than pure diesel
fuel [33]. The primary reasons given by the authors include the
higher viscosity and the poor spray characteristic for biodiesel,
which lead to poor mixing and poor combustion. However, no differences in CO emissions between biodiesel and diesel have been
also reported by some authors [10,41].
About impact on CO emissions engine load, it was reported that
CO emissions increased with engine load in the some papers
[12,35,42]. On the contrary, other authors [36,37,43] reported that
CO emissions reduced with the increase in engine load. Also it was
indicated by some other authors [6,32,38,44] that CO emissions
were higher in low load or no load, heavy load and full load but
were lower in the intermediate load. About the effect of engine
speed on CO emissions, many researchers agreed on this view that
CO emissions for biodiesel decrease with an increase in engine
speed [8,28].
There were many authors have shown that NOx emissions
increase slightly when pure diesel fuel replaced by biodiesel fuel
[40,45]. On the contrary, Hossain et al. [39] observed that NOx
emissions from biodiesel blends of various feedstocks are slightly
lower than those of conventional diesel, and the difference is
greater for blends with higher percentages of biodiesel.
Of course, some others literature showed that there are no regularity with the increased content of pure biodiesel [32]. Many
researchers [10,36,44,49,50] investigated the effect of engine load
on NOx emissions of biodiesel. They have reported NOx emissions
increase with increase in engine load. Of course, no significant
effect of engine load on NOx emissions was shown in some literatures [34,41]. About the effect of engine speed on NOx emissions
some authors [8,28] agreed on this view that NOx emissions
reduced with an increase in engine speed.
Over the last 60 years, a number of optimization techniques
have been developed and used in the structural optimization
[51]. It is a well-known fact that classical optimization techniques
impose several limitations on solving mathematical programming
models. In order to overcome these limitations, more flexible and
adaptable algorithms are needed, making it possible to model a
given problem as close as possible to reality. Based on this motivation, many nature inspired algorithms were developed in the literatures such as Genetic Algorithm (GA) [52], Simulated Annealing
(SA) [53] and Tabu Search (TS) [54]. It has also been shown that
these algorithms can provide far better solutions in comparison
to classical algorithms.
A branch of nature inspired algorithms which are called as
swarm intelligence is focused on insect behavior in order to
develop some meta-heuristics which can mimic insects problem

solution abilities. Interactions between insects contribute to the

collective intelligence of the social insect colonies and these interactions have been successfully adapted to scientific problems for
optimization. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) [55] and Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) [56] are some of the well-known algorithms that mimic insect behavior in problem modeling and
solution. Observations and studies on honey bee behaviors
resulted in a new generation of optimization algorithms that versions for both combinatorial and continuous optimization problems have been presented in the literatures [57,58].
The Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm is a relatively new
member of swarm intelligence and tries to model the natural
behavior of real honey bees in food foraging. Honey bees use several mechanisms to optimally locate food sources and to search
new ones. This makes them good candidates for developing new
intelligent search algorithms. Using this algorithm for clustering
analysis, used in many disciplines and applications, shows that
ABC algorithm is an important tool and a descriptive task seeking
to identify homogeneous groups of objects based on the values of
their attributes.
The objective of this research is using Artificial Bees Colony
Algorithm approach to optimize engine performance and emission
characteristics by determine optimize condition of biodiesel percentage in fuel mixture (biodiesel and diesel fuel No. 2), engine
speed and engine load and investigating of effect of these variables
on engine parameters. ABC Algorithms approach is used to maximize the brake power and torque and minimize BSFC, CO, HC
and NOx.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Biodiesel preparation and fuel properties
Since, waste vegetable cooking oil is a more economical source
of the fuel than other sources, it is considered as a source of the
biodiesel in this study [59]. In this research, biodiesel was produced by a transesterification process which was catalyzed by
KOH (as Alkali catalyst) and methanol (as alcohol) at local biofuels
laboratories. Then, the properties of the biodiesel and diesel fuel
have been analyzed in accordance with the ASTM D6751 standards
in a testing laboratory. The important properties of waste vegetable cooking oil and No. 2 diesel are shown in Table 1.
2.2. Test engine experimental setup and procedure
The engine tests were done on a turbocharged DI diesel engine.
Table 2 shows the major specifications of the engine under the test.
The diesel engine was fuelled with blends of biodiesel and No. 2
diesel fuel. The fuel blends were used at the different engine
speeds and engine loads. The engine speed was measured by a digital tachometer. A schematic diagram of the engine test setup and
its instrumentation was shown in Fig. 1. According to Fig. 1, the

Table 1
Properties of diesel and biodiesel fuels used for present investigation.
Property

Method

Units

Biodiesel

Diesel

Flash point
Pour point
Cloud point
Kinematical viscosity, 40 C
Copper strip corrosion
Density
Cetane number
Gross heating value
Total sulfur

ASTM-D92
ASTM-D97
ASTM-D2500
ASTM-D445
ASTM-D130

ASTM-D613

ASTM-D5453

C
C
C
mm2/s

kg/m3

kJ/kg
wt%

176
4
1
4.15
1a
880
55.1
37730
0.0018

61
0
2
4.03
1a
840
50.33
42,930
0.0500

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A. Shirneshan et al. / Fuel 184 (2016) 518526

Table 2
The Specifications of the test engine.

Table 3
The specifications of test instrumentations.

Engine type

Diesel

Parameter

Measurement range

Resolution

Made
Cylinder number
Displacement (cc)
Compression ratio
Maximum power (kW/rpm)
Maximum torque (N
m/rpm)
Cooling system

IDEM
4
3800
16:1
80/2800
350/1900
Water cooled

Torque
Engine speed
CO
HC
NOx

010 vol%
020,000 ppm
05000 ppm

1 (N
m)
1 (rev/min)
0.01 (vol%)
1 (ppm)
1 (ppm)

Table 4
The experimental design matrix.

engine was coupled to a Zolner hydraulic dynamometer to provide

brake load and an AVL gas analyzer model Di Com 4000 was used
to measure CO, HC and NOx emissions. The Specifications of Test
Instrumentations was shown in Table 3. Also a system with scale
method was employed for determination of consumed fuel. The
engine was allowed to run for a few times until the exhaust gas
temperature, the cooling water temperature, the lubricating oil
temperature, as well as the CO2 gas concentration, have attained
steady-state values and then the data were recorded.
2.3. Experimental design and statistical analysis
The experiments were designed using a statistical tool known
as Design of Experiments (DOE). In this research, a quadratic model
was employed to examine the relationship between the independent and dependent variables and set of quantitative experimental
factors. The independent variables were percentage of biodiesel in
fuel mixture, X1, engine speed, X2 and engine load, X3. The experimental designs of the coded (x) and actual (X) levels of variables
are shown in Table 4. The six dependent variables (Y) were brake
power, brake torque, BSFC, HC, CO and NOx emissions. The coefficients of the polynomial were represented by b0 (constant term);
b1, b2 and b3 (linear effects); b11, b22 and b33 (quadratic effects);
and b12, b13 and b23 (interaction effects):

y b0 b1 x1 b2 x2 b3 x3 b11 x21 b22 x22 b33 x33

b12 x1 x2 b13 x1 x3 b23 x2 x3

Minitab software was used to develop the mathematical models

and to evaluate the subsequent regression analyses and analyses of
variance (ANOVA). Based on these models, the main and

Experiment
number

Biodiesel percentage in fuel

mixture (%)
X1(x1)

Engine speed
(rpm)
X2(x2)

Engine
load (%)
X3(x3)

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

20(1)
80(1)
20(1)
80(1)
20(1)
80(1)
20(1)
80(1)
0(1.682)
100(1.682)
50(0)
50(0)
50(0)
50(0)
50(0)
50(0)
50(0)
50(0)
50(0)
50(0)

1365(1)
1365(1)
2435(1)
2435(1)
1365(1)
1365(1)
2435(1)
2435(1)
1900(0)
1900(0)
1000(1.682)
2800(1.682)
1900(0)
1900(0)
1900(0)
1900(0)
1900(0)
1900(0)
1900(0)
1900(0)

40(1)
40(1)
40(1)
40(1)
80(1)
80(1)
80(1)
80(1)
62.5(0)
62.5(0)
62.5(0)
62.5(0)
25(1.682)
100(1.682)
62.5(0)
62.5(0)
62.5(0)
62.5(0)
62.5(0)
62.5(0)

interaction effects of the process parameters on the exhaust emissions characteristics were computed and plotted in contour and
surface plots as shown in Figs. 213.
2.4. The Artificial Bee Colony meta-heuristic
The modern heuristic algorithms which have been developed
for solving combinatorial and numeric optimization problems

Fig. 1. The engine test set up.

A. Shirneshan et al. / Fuel 184 (2016) 518526

521

Fig. 5. Effect of biodiesel percentage and engine load on Torque.

Fig. 2. Effect of biodiesel percentage and engine speed on break power.

Fig. 6. Effect of biodiesel percentage and engine speed on BSFC.

Fig. 3. Effect of biodiesel percentage and engine load on break power.

Fig. 4. Effect of biodiesel percentage and engine speed on Torque.

Fig. 7. Effect of biodiesel percentage and engine load on BSFC.

algorithms can be classified into different groups depending on the

criteria being considered, such as population based, iterative based,
stochastic, and deterministic. While an algorithm working with a
set of solutions and trying to improve them is called population
based, the one using multiple iterations to approach the solution
sought is named as iterative algorithm. If an algorithm employs a
probabilistic rule for improving a solution then it is called

probabilistic or stochastic. Another classification can be made

depending on the nature of phenomenon simulated by the algorithm. This type of classification mainly has two important groups
of population based algorithms: evolutionary algorithms (EA) and
swarm intelligence based algorithms. Swarm intelligence is a
research branch that models the population of interacting agents
or swarms that are able to self-organize. An ant colony, a flock of

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A. Shirneshan et al. / Fuel 184 (2016) 518526

Fig. 8. Effect of biodiesel percentage and engine speed on HC.

Fig. 11. Effect of biodiesel percentage and engine load on CO.

choose a food source, and scout bees searching for food sources
randomly. Both onlookers and scouts are also called unemployed
bees. Initially, all food source positions are discovered by scout
bees. Thereafter, the nectar of food sources are exploited by
employed bees and onlooker bees, and this continual exploitation
will ultimately cause them to become exhausted. Then, the
employed bee which was exploiting the exhausted food source
becomes a scout bee in search of further food sources once again.
In other words, the employed bee whose food source has been
exhausted becomes a scout bee. In ABC, the position of a food
source represents a possible solution to the problem and the nectar
amount of a food source corresponds to the quality (fitness) of the
associated solution. The number of employed bees is equal to the
number of food sources (solutions) since each employed bee is
associated with one and only one food source [60].
Fig. 9. Effect of biodiesel percentage and engine load on HC.

2.4.1. Initialization phase

!

All the vectors of the population of food sources, xm , are initialized (m = 1, . . . , SN, SN: population size) by scout bees and control
!

parameters are set. Since each food source, xm , is a solution vector

!
xm

vector holds n variables, (xmi,

to the optimization problem, each
i = 1, . . . , n), which are to be optimized so as to minimize the objective function [60].
The following definition might be used for initialization purposes (2):

xmi li rand0; 1  ui  li

where li and ui are the lower and upper bound of the parameter xmi,
respectively.
2.4.2. Employed Bees Phase
!

Employed bees search for new food sources (tm ) having more
!

Fig. 10. Effect of biodiesel percentage and engine speed on CO.

birds or an immune system is a typical example of a swarm system.

Bees swarming around their hive is another example of swarm
intelligence. Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) Algorithm is an optimization algorithm based on the intelligent behavior of honey bee
swarm.
In ABC, the colony of artificial bees contains three groups of
bees: employed bees associated with specific food sources, onlooker bees watching the dance of employed bees within the hive to

nectar within the neighbourhood of the food source (xm ) in their

memory. They find a neighbor food source and then evaluate its
profitability (fitness). For example, they can determine a neighbor
food source

tm using the formula given by Eq. (3):

tm xmi mi xmi  xki

where xk is a randomly selected food source, i is a randomly chosen

parameter index and /mi is a random number within the range
!

tm , its fitness is
!
!
calculated and a greedy selection is applied between tm and xm .

[a, a]. After producing the new food source

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A. Shirneshan et al. / Fuel 184 (2016) 518526

!

The fitness value of the solution, fitm(xm ), might be calculated

for minimization problems using the following formula (4)
!
fitm xm

8
<
:

if

f m xm P 0

1 absf m xm if

f m xm < 0

1
!
1f m xm
!

where fm(xm ) is the objective function value of solution xm .

2.4.3. Onlooker Bees Phase
Unemployed bees consist of two groups of bees: onlooker bees
and scouts. Employed bees share their food source information
with onlooker bees waiting in the hive and then onlooker bees
probabilistically choose their food sources depending on this information. In ABC, an onlooker bee chooses a food source depending
on the probability values calculated using the fitness values provided by employed bees. For this purpose, a fitness based selection
technique can be used, such as the roulette wheel selection
method [61].
!

The probability value pm with which xm is chosen by an onlooker bee can be calculated by using the expression given in Eq. (5):
!

fit m xm

pm P
SN

m1 fit m xm
!

After a food source xm for an onlooker bee is probabilistically

!
m

chosen, a neighbourhood source t is determined by using Eq.

(2), and its fitness value is computed. As in the employed bees
!
m

!
xm .

phase, a greedy selection is applied between t and

Hence,
more onlookers are recruited to richer sources and positive feedback behavior appears.
2.4.4. Scout Bees Phase
The unemployed bees that choose their food sources randomly
are called scouts. Employed bees whose solutions cannot be
improved through a predetermined number of trials, specified by
the user of the ABC algorithm and called limit or abandonment
criteria herein, become scouts and their solutions are abandoned.
Then, the converted scouts start to search for new solutions, ran!

domly. For instance, if solution xm has been abandoned, the new

solution discovered by the scout who was the employed bee of
!

xm can be defined by (1). Hence those sources which are initially

poor or have been made poor by exploitation are abandoned and
negative feedback behavior arises to balance the positive feedback
[60].

sel [1,8]. The main reason for increased brake power at high engine
speeds is the increased atomization ratio that causes higher combustion efficiency [1]. At the same time, the increased inlet air flow
speed or turbulence happens at high engine speeds. This improves
the effect of atomization of the fuel in the combustion chamber,
makes the mixture more homogeneous, and increases brake power
[1]. Because of this reason, the advantageous effect of biodiesel as
an oxygenated fuel was partially lost at high speeds [26]. Also Fig. 3
shows that biodiesel has a beneficial effect as an oxygenated fuel to
generate more complete combustion, which means increased
brake power at higher engine load. This indicates that the addition
of oxygenated fuel is most effective in rich combustions [26]. However, at partial loads, the overall mixture was further leaned out.
Therefore, addition of biodiesel had only a slight beneficial effect
on the performance, and there were slight reductions in the engine
power due to the lower heating value of biodiesel. The relation
between power with biodiesel percentage (x1), engine speed (x2)
and load (x3) mention in Eq. (6).

Power kW 47:32 0:08x1 0:056x2 0:205x3

0:0002x21 1:4  105 x22
5:499  104 x23 0:0004x1 x3
0:0002x2 x3

3.2. Brake torque

The predicted brake torque amounts for different fuel blends and
engine speeds are shown in Fig. 4. Results showed the maximum
brake torque (more than 334 N
m) happens for fuel blends included
less than 15% biodiesel at full load and engine speed between 1700
and 1900 rpm. Also the minimum brake torque was less than
12 N
m at 25% engine load and 1000 rpm as engine speed for fuel
blends included more than 60% biodiesel. The predicted values for
the brake torques decrease slightly with the increasing amount of
biodiesel in the fuel blend. It could be due to the heat content of
the fuel blend decreases with the increasing amount of biodiesel
compared to that diesel fuel No. 2 [1,3,4,63]. On the other hand,
the loss of heating value of biodiesel could be compensated by the
higher oxygen content of biodiesel and high lubricity that result
in the reduced friction loss and thus improve the brake effective torque [14,64]. Fig. 5 shows the brake torque increases with increasing
engine load, because the increase in combustion temperature leads
to more complete combustion during the higher load [5]. Finally,
the relation between torque with biodiesel percentage (x1), engine
speed (x2) and load (x3) mention in Eq. (7).

Torque N
m 299:277 0:524x1 0:302x2 4:654x3

3. Results and discussion
3.1. Brake power
Fig. 2 shows the predicted brake power amounts for different
fuel blends and engine speeds. Results showed the maximum
brake power happens at full load and engine speed between
2700 and 2800 rpm for diesel fuel No. 2 with amount of more than
75 kW. Also the minimum brake power is less than 0.7 kW for fuel
blends included more than 95% biodiesel at 25% engine load and
1000 rpm as engine speed.
The brake power was decreased slightly with increasing the
amount of biodiesel in the fuel blend. According to the results,
the brake power level decreased with the proportion of biodiesel
in the blend. This decrease is due to the lower heating value of biodiesel with respect to diesel fuel No. 2 [4,5,62]. On the other hand,
biodiesel with the higher oxygen content causes higher combustion efficiency and compensates the loss of heating value of biodie-

0:00362x21 7:401  105 x22

0:00637x23 3:771  104 x2 x3

3.3. Brake specific fuel consumption

Fig. 6 shows the effects of biodiesel percentage and engine
speed on the predicted brake specific fuel consumption of the
engine. And also effect of biodiesel percentage and engine load
on BSFC was shown in Fig. 7. The results showed the maximum
brake specific fuel consumption (330 (g/kW
h)) happens for fuel
blends included more than 95% biodiesel at 25% engine load and
engine speed between 2700 and 2800 rpm. Also the minimum
brake specific fuel consumption was less than 208 (g/kW
h) at full
engine load and engine speed between 1500 and 1700 rpm for fuel
blends included less than 10% biodiesel. According to the results,
the BSFC initially decreased with increase in speed up to
1300 rpm and then BSFC remains approximately constant between

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A. Shirneshan et al. / Fuel 184 (2016) 518526

1300 rpm and 1900 rpm. But, the BSFC increased sharply with
speed for the range of more than 1900 rpm [5]. The results indicated with the increasing amount of biodiesel in the fuel blend
the brake specific fuel consumption increases. The lower heating
value of the biodiesel than that of diesel fuel No. 2 contributes
for increasing the BSFC. So, if the biodiesel or its blends were used
in the diesel engine, the BSFC will increase [6,14]. Also, since the
fuel is delivered to the combustion chamber on a volumetric basis,
a larger mass flow rate is injected to the cylinders with the biodiesel blends than diesel fuel No. 2 for the same fuel volume due to
the higher density of biodiesel. In addition, injection pressure, viscosity and the atomization ratio are the parameters that might
have some effects on the BSFC and brake power values [10].
Eq. (8) showed relation between BSFC with biodiesel percentage
(x1), engine speed (x2) and load (x3).

BSFC g=kW=h 298:74 0:5x1 0:088x2 0:236x3

0:0014x21 2:67  105 x22
0:00018x1 x2 0:00336x1 x3

3.4. HC emissions
For the fuel blends, the HC amount in the exhaust was
decreased with increasing the amount of biodiesel in the fuel blend
(Figs. 8 and 9). As can be understood from the percentages, the HC
emissions level decreased with the proportion of biodiesel in the
blend. Probably, the main reason for the higher HC emissions for
diesel fuel No. 2 is the insufficient oxygen in the combustion
region. On the other hand, the higher oxygen content of biodiesel
in combustion region provided more complete combustion. This
means that biodiesel in the fuel mixture increases the cetane number and oxygen content of the blend; that causes higher combustion efficiency and reduces the level of HC emission [1]. The
main reason for reduced HC emissions at high engine speeds is
the increased atomization. At the same time, high engine speeds
cause the increased inlet air flow speed or turbulence. This
enhances the effect of atomization of the fuel in the cylinder,
makes the mixture more homogeneous, and reduces HC emissions
[1]. Finally, the relation between HC with biodiesel percentage (x1),
engine speed (x2) and load (x3) mention in Eq. (9).

7:53  104 x3 6:48  107 x21 6:32

 109 x22 2:93  106 x23 1:69  106 x1 x3
7:33  108 x2 x3

10

3.6. NOx emissions

The formation of nitrogen oxides is affected by the peak flame
temperature, the residence time of the high burning gas temperature, ignition delay, and the content of nitrogen and oxygen available in the reacting mixture [28]. NOx emissions appeared to lessen
with an increase in engine speed, and it was increased when load
increased, as shown in Figs. 12 and 13. Although the increased
engine speed caused an increase in the temperature and pressure
of the burning gas, the period of the ignition delay was reduced
at the mean time. So this condition resulted in a reduction of the
residence time of the peak burning gas temperature. Hess et al.
[46] inferred that the ignition timing of biodiesel may be advanced
because of its higher isentropic bulk modulus, which incurs a
higher level of NOx emissions. In addition, the NOx formation
was enhanced and became significant in the presence of the chemically bound oxygen content in the biodiesels, thus resulting in
their higher level of NOx emissions compared with the diesel fuel
No. 2. This result agrees well with previous studies [47]. Finally,
the relation between NOx with biodiesel percentage (x1), engine
speed (x2) and load (x3) mention in Eq. (11).

NOx ppm 216:71 0:264x1 0:158x2 0:755x3

0:0114x21 5:37  105 x22
0:0558x23 0:00188x2 x3

11

3.7. Results of optimization with Artificial Bees Colony

According to goal functions (Eqs. (6)(11)) and boundary conditions optimum point was calculated. It should be noted that objective in this research were maximized power and torque and
minimized BSFC, CO, HC and NOx. According to boundary condition, goal function obtained in Eq. (12):

Eq: 5
Eq: 6
Eq: 7 Eq: 8


Powermax Torquemax BSFC max HCmax

Eq: 9 Eq: 10

COmax
NOxmax

HC ppm 56:38 0:028x1 0:019x2 0:554x3

Goal function 

5:19  104 x21 2:1  106 x22

0:0026x23 3:14  105 x1 x2
0:0011x1 x3 8:38  105 x2 x3

CO % 0:109 3:43  104 x1 3:96  105 x2

3.5. CO emissions
Figs. 10 and 11 showed the CO traces for different fuels. It is
observed that the CO emissions decrease with an increase in
engine speed. This decrease may be due to higher atomization ratio
which increases at higher engine speeds. Poor atomization and
uneven distribution of small portions of fuel across the combustion
chamber, along with a low gas temperature, may cause local
oxygen deficiency and incomplete combustion at lower engine
speeds [65]. The CO emissions are shown to decrease more rapidly
for all fuels from 1000 rpm to 2000 rpm. Reduced CO emissions
were maintained, probably, thanks to the oxygen inherently present in the biodiesel, which makes it easier to be burnt at higher
temperature in the cylinder. Almost similar results can be found
in other studies [65]. Eq. (10) showed relation between CO with
biodiesel percentage (x1), engine speed (x2) and load (x3) mention
in Eq. (10).

Fig. 12. Effect of biodiesel percentage and engine speed on NOx.

12

A. Shirneshan et al. / Fuel 184 (2016) 518526

525

The results of optimization showed that amount of biodiesel

percentage, engine speed and load were 85.63%, 2208 rpm, 97%
respectively. At the optimum point obtained by Artificial Bees Colony Algorithm, the values of brake power, brake torque, BSFC, CO,
HC and NOx were obtained equal to 63 kW, 298 N
m, 202.85 g/
kW
h, 0.012%, 88 ppm and 560 ppm respectively. Also for independent variables, the experimental values of power, torque, BSFC, CO,
HC and NOx were obtained equal to 59 kW, 252 N
m, 219.12 g/
kW
h, 0.014%, 83 ppm and 589 ppm respectively. This finding
proves that ABC algorithm can estimate the optimum point in
engine performance with high accuracy.

4. Conclusion

Fig. 13. Effect of biodiesel percentage and engine load on NOx.

Fig. 14. Effect of colony size on fitness value.

The ABC algorithm was highly helpful to optimize the significant parameters which are most influencing on the performance and emission characteristics.
The brake power and brake torque decrease with the increase of
biodiesel in the blends, due to the lower heating value of
biodiesel.
The brake specific fuel consumption increases with the increase
of biodiesel in the blends, due to the lower heating value of
biodiesel.
The brake power and torque at full engine load were 68 and 69%
more than these characteristics at 25% engine load for all fuel
blends.
Results showed that with the increase of biodiesel in the blends,
the HC emissions decrease due to the higher oxygen content of
biodiesel that provided more complete combustion in combustion region.
The CO emissions decreased with biodiesel usage. Reduced CO
emissions were maintained, probably, thanks to the oxygen
inherently present in biodiesel.
Results showed that higher NOx formation occurred in using
biodiesel due to the presence of the chemically bound oxygen
content in the biodiesels.
Results showed that the effect of biodiesel in the fuel mixture
on HC and CO emissions is more than that on NOx emissions.
An increase in engine speed appeared to cause a decrease in the
emission of HC, CO and NOx.
On the emissions, in general, HC and CO emissions are higher at
low engine loads, and lower at high engine loads while NOx,
increase with engine loads.
Decreasing the biodiesel percentage in fuel mixture contributed
for better power and torque with lesser BSEC at all engine loads
and engine speeds with lower NOx and higher CO and HC
emissions.
At moderate engine speeds, lesser BSEC with high brake power
and brake torque and low CO and HC emissions were noticed.
At the optimum point (85.63% of biodiesel in fuel mixture,
2208 rpm of engine speed and 97% of engine load) obtained
by Artificial Bees Colony Algorithm, the values of power, torque,
BSFC, CO, HC and NOx were obtained equal to 63 kW, 298 N
m,
202.85 g/kW
h, 0.012%, 88 ppm and 560 ppm respectively.

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Fig. 15. Trend of fitness value versus iteration.

Algorithm parameters such as colony size, number of Iterations

and Acceleration Coefficient were changed to obtain minimal point
for Eq. (12) using try and error method. For example effect of colony size on fitness value and trend of trend of fitness value versus
iteration showed in Figs. 14 and 15.

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