1575

An experimental investigation on optimized manifold

injection in a direct-injection diesel engine with various
hydrogen owrates
N Saravanan* and G Nagarajan
Internal Combustion Engineering Division, Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, Guindy,
Anna University, Chennai, India
The manuscript was received on 20 April 2007 and was accepted after revision for publication on 31 August 2007.
DOI: 10.1243/09544070JAUTO609

Abstract: In recent days, the importance of environment and energy have been emphasized
and, among various energy sources, the fuels for automotive use are attracting attention as
they are closely related to day-to-day life. The fossil fuels that are widely used have some
serious problems. One of these problems is the limit in reserves, the second problem is that
they cannot be recycled, and another problem is that they produce many exhaust emissions.
Therefore, various research studies on alternative fuels have been carried out to nd a substitute
for fossil fuels. Hydrogen, a non-carbon fuel, can meet zero-emission vehicles standards in the
future and can be commercially used as a fuel, even though it has a number of technical and
economical barriers.
For this paper, experiments were conducted to determine the optimized injection timing,
injection duration, and injection quantity of the fuel for a manifold injected hydrogen-operated
engine using diesel fuel as an ignition source for hydrogen. In the manifold injection technique,
the optimized condition is the start of injection at gas exchange top dead centre (TDC) with
an injection duration of 30 crank angle (CA) with a hydrogen owrate of 7.5 l/min. The brake
thermal eciency is found to increase by 9 per cent compared with diesel fuel. Smoke is
found to be lower for all hydrogen owrates at all the load conditions owing to the absence of
carbon in hydrogen. CO emissions vary from 0.03 to 0.12 vol % compared with from 0.08 to
0.14 vol % in a diesel fuel investigation. The exhaust gas temperature is found to be slightly
higher by 7 per cent for the hydrogen operation compared with diesel fuel. Manifold injection
systems with diesel fuel as the ignition source operate smoothly, show improved performance,
and emit less pollution than diesel fuel does. It is possible to operate the direct-injection diesel
engine smoothly using hydrogen in dual-fuel mode for the entire load spectrum.
Keywords: hydrogen, manifold injection, performance, emission, combustion, electronic
control unit

1 INTRODUCTION
Considerable eort has been made to develop and
introduce new alternative sources of energy for
conventional gasoline (petrol) and diesel engines.
Environmental pollution and uncertainty in the cost
of petroleum products are the principal driving
* Corresponding author: Internal Combustion Engineering
Division, Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of
Engineering, Guindy, Anna University, Chennai, 600025, India.
email: sarav_2003@yahoo.co.in

JAUTO609 IMechE 2007

forces for this movement. Several alternative fuels

have been tried, but all of these are carbon-based
fuels; therefore, net carbon-based pollutants cannot
be reduced [1]. One alternative to carbon-based
fuels is hydrogen. Hydrogen has the outstanding
advantages of a wide ammability range and with
minimal formation of unburned hydrocarbon (HC)
and carbon monoxide (CO) except for that due to the
partial burning of lubrication oil in the combustion
chamber. In order to adopt gaseous hydrogen as
a fuel for an internal combustion engine, much
research has been carried out on the hydrogen
Proc. IMechE Vol. 221 Part D: J. Automobile Engineering