Performance Test of Compression Ignition Engine

Michael Adrian Vallecera Ygnacio1

Abstract: Internal Combustion (IC) engines are widely used in the automobile industry and ever since its creation, the
demand these engines are growing each year. However IC engines are known to be pollutants and one of the major
culprits to climate change due to the harmful exhaust gases these engines emits. Thus the need to produce efficient and
economical engines arise. It is known that engines that are efficient and working at high performance shows lesser
emissions. This study investigates the CI engines operation performance. In this study, the effects of varying the load and
throttle positions under load and without load was also determined. The torque produced by the engine, specific fuel
consumption, engine speed and temperatures were gathered. These parameters are needed in order to determine the
efficiency of the Diesel Engine.

Author keywords: Diesel engine; Engine performance: Combustion; Engine operation

Introduction Student, Dept. Mechanical Engineering, Univ. of San

The growing concern on environmental pollution
caused by the extensive use of conventional fossil
fuels has led to search for more environment friendly
and renewable fuels. Among various options
investigated for diesel fuel, biodiesel has been
reported to be one of the strong contenders for
reductions in exhaust emissions. (Raheman, 2008)
Diesel engines are widely used in a variety of
vehicles due to their high fuel efficiency and low cost
compared to other fuel engines. The Diesel engine is
also known as a compression-ignition or CI engine.
Compression ignition (CI) engine often called diesel
engine plays an important role in transportation and
power generation because of their high efficiency,
affordability, and reliability (Iorio et al. 2016). The
diesel engine is an internal combustion engine in
which ignition of the fuel that has been injected into
the combustion chamber is caused by the high
temperature which a gas achieves when greatly
compressed (adiabatic compression). This contrasts
with spark-ignition engines such as a petrol engine or
the gasoline engine, which use a spark plug to ignite
an air-fuel mixture.
In diesel engines, glow plugs may be used to aid
starting in cold weather, or when the engine uses a
lower compression-ratio, or both because it serves as
a pre-warmer to the combustion chamber.
Carlos, Cebu City 6000, Philippines, E-mail:
michaeladrianygnacio@gmail.com
The diesel engine has the highest thermal efficiency
or the engine efficiency of any practical internal
combustion engine due to its very high expansion
ratio and inherent lean burn which enables heat
dissipation by the excess air. A small efficiency loss
is also avoided compared to two-stroke non-direct-
injection gasoline engines since unburnt fuel is not
present at valve overlap and therefore no fuel goes
directly from the intake/injection to the exhaust.
Low-speed diesel engines, as used in ships and other
applications where overall engine weight is relatively
unimportant, can have a thermal efficiency that
exceeds 50%
The performance of any internal-combustion engine,
irrespective of its operating cycle, is primarily a
function of the thermal energy liberated per cycle, the
part of the cycle in which it is liberated, the
compression ratio, and the mechanical limitations
imposed by the engine structure. (Rothrock)
For a given compression ratio the thermal efficiency
of the Otto cycle would be greater than the thermal
efficiency of the Diesel cycle. However it must be
remembered that the Diesel cycle operates on a much
higher compression ratios than SI engines (12 to 24
versus 8 to 11) and thus have higher thermal
efficiencies. (Pulkrabek)
Engine performance is an indication of the degree of
success of the engine performs its assigned task, i.e.
 the conversion of the chemical energy contained in
the fuel into the useful mechanical work. The
performance of an engine is evaluated on the
variables like indicated power, brake power, brake
specific fuel consumption, exhaust emissions, cooling
of engine, maintenance. (Arante, 2014)
Experimental Methods
Apparatus
Fig. 1 shows the test set-up available in the USC-TC
ME laboratory. The engine and other equipment are
already fixed and properly set up in the lab for the
purpose of determining the necessary parameters in
obtaining the performance of the compression-
ignition engine (CI engine). The compression-
ignition engine was coupled with a dynamometer
wherein it can measure the torque of the CI engine.
An elevated water tank placed near the set-up
supplies the water to the dynamometer. That water
from the water tank flows to the water absorber and
exits through a hose and into the drain. The control
panel displays the torque, engine speed, exhaust
temperature and inlet temperature of the air.
Fig. 1. Compression-Ignition Engine Setup Schematic
Diagram (Source: Arante, Laurente, Villamor, 2014)
Preparation before the Experiment
Before the engine or the experiment itself starts, the
laboratory windows were opened. An electric fan was
also placed near the exhaust of the engine to direct
the exhaust gases of the engine out of the room since
these gases contain harmful elements that could
affect the health of the students. The water tank was
filled with water up to the mark that shows half of its
maximum capacity. The fuel filter was checked and
ensured to be clean. The fuel tank was refilled with
the diesel fuel.
Engine Start Up
The battery was connected to the starter of the CI
engine. A wrench was used to secure the wires to the
battery. The wires were connecter to the correct
polarity of the battery. Fuel was supplied to the
engine by opening the valve. The recoil rope was
pulled several times while pressing down the choke
to relieve friction between the mechanical parts of the
engine. The throttle was set to the desired position.
The choke was set downwards before starting the
engine. An extension wire was needed to supply
electricity to the control panel. It was then turned on
and the reset button was pressed in order to reset the
data. The key was inserted and the engine is turned
on.
Data Gathering
Initially, no load was applied by tightly closing the
water inlet valve in the dynamometer coming from
the water supply tank. At 25% throttle, we started at
1400rpm and gathered the data available in the
control panel. The torque values were varying up and
down so much. The fuel consumption was attained
based on the amount of time (in seconds) the certain
amount of fuel is consumed by the engine. In this
experiment we timed as to how many seconds the
engine can consume 10mL of fuel. Ambient
temperature and the exhaust temperature can be
gathered directly in the control panel in the CI engine
setup. These are labelled T1 and T2 respectively.
Load was slowly applied to the engine by opening the
water inlet valve until we reach the designated speed
of the engine. The throttle was adjusted to three
different throttle positions (25%, 50% and 75%) and
4 engine speeds each throttle position. A difficulty
was encountered in attaining the required speed as
there is a lag in the engine response when the load is
applied. After the data were gathered, the efficiency
was computed
Results and Discussion

Brake Power

An IC engine is used to produce mechanical power

by combustion of fuel. Power is referred to as the rate
at which work is done. Power is expressed as the
product of force and linear velocity or product of
torque and angular velocity. In order to measure
power one needs to measure torque or force and
speed. The force or torque is measured by
Dynamometer and speed by Tachometer. The power
developed by an engine and measured at the output Fig. 2. Typical Power & Torque vs engine RPM curve of a
shaft is called the brake power (bp) and is given by: typical automobile engine. (Retrieved from:
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-it-that-the-output-torque-
of-an-engine-starts-reducing-after-reaching-a-peak-even-
P=2 TN though-the-RPM-is-increasing)

(1) The result that we obtained in this experiment is

where: P = Brake power
N = Engine speed
T = Torque produced by the engine.
Fig. 2 shows the typical power and torque vs. engine
speed curve. As seen on the graph, the power of the
engine slightly increases as the engine speed
increases. This is because if the throttle setting is
higher, its means that the engine speed is also higher.
Based on equation 1, the brake power of an engine is
shown in Fig. 3. The graph shows the power at the
three different throttle position versus the
corresponding engine speeds. Apparently, the graph
that we obtained based on the data we gathered just
shows the part of the graph where the power begins
to fall or decrease again as seen in Fig.1.
POWER VS. SPEED
5
4
3
Power (kW)

proportional to the increase of the speed. However 2

the graph also shows that the maximum power and 1
0
torque that the engine yields is located at a certain
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
point and then drops back down as the speed 1 12 13 14 24 26 28 30 32 34 36
1
increases further.
Speed

25% 50% 75%

Figure 3 POWER VS SPEED

Heating Value of Fuel

Energy input to the system is the chemical energy of
fuel, which is calculated as the following (Kopac and
Kokturk, 2005; Caliskan et al., 2010)

Qf =Qmf LHV
(2)

where: Qf= combustion heat from fuel (kW)

Qmf= fuel consumption (kg/sec)
 LHV = lower heating value of fuel (kJ/kg)
= 43400kJ/kg
The heating value of a fuel is determined by the
amount of fuel and the lower heating value of fuel.
The heating value of fuel also determines the amount
of chemical energy that the fuel can transmit and
convert into mechanical power. If more fuel is fed to
the engine, more power is attained by the engine
because the greater the heating value, the greater the
power it yields. Fig. 4 shows the graph between
Power and the heating value of the diesel fuel used in
the duration of the experiment.
POWER VS. HEATING VALUE OF FUEL
6 25%
4
Power (kW)
2
0 Fig. 5 Brake Power VS. Thermal Efficiency
QF (kW)
25% 50% 100&
Fig. 4 Brake Power VS Heating Value of Fuel
Brake Thermal Efficiency
Thermal efficiency is the measure of the efficiency
and completeness of combustion of the fuel, or, more
specifically, the ratio of the out-put or work done by
the working substance in the cylinder in a given time
to the input or heat energy of the fuel supplied during
the same time. The brake thermal efficiency can be
determined from:
P
bt = (3)
Qf
where: bt = brake thermal efficiency
P= brake power
Qf = combustion heat of fuel.
Engines can have indicated thermal efficiencies in the
range of 50% to 60%, with brake thermal efficiency
with about 30%. Some large, slow CI engines can
have brake thermal efficiencies greater than 50%
(Pulkrabek).
Brake Power VS. Thermal Efficiency
25
20
Thermal Efficiency
15
10
5
0
12 17 .3 36 06 08 03 .6 15 44 25 09
0. 0. 0 0. 0. 0. 1. 1 0. 3. 4. 4.
Brake Power (kW)
50% 75%
Figure 5 shows the graph between Brake power and
the thermal efficiency of the CI engine based on the
data we gathered during the experiment. It can be
observed that as the brake power increases, the
thermal efficiency also increases.
Conclusions
At one point closer to the engines upper RPM limit,
the power peaks and starts to reduce as the rate of fall
in torque is greater than the rate of increase in RPM.
Varying the engine speed of the CI engine has
revealed that in every throttle setting there exist a
point where the efficiency of the CI engine will be
optimal It is the condition where the CI engine is at
its highest and most efficient.
The speed and torque is directly proportional to the
speed until it reaches the optimum point and then
both will drastically fall back one the speed increases
further from the optimum point.
The highest efficiency the engine reached during the
experiment was only 21% when the throttle position
was at 75%.
Notations
The following symbols are used in this paper:
 Bsfc = break specific fuel consumption
LHV = lower heating value (kJ/kg)
N = engine speed (rpm)
Pulkrabek, W. Engineering Fundamentals of the
Internal Combustion Engine. 2nd Edition, 91-94.
Sing, H. (2012). Thermodynamics II- IC Engine
Testing. Govt. Polytechnic College Batala

P = engine brake power (kW)

Qf = heating value of fuel (kW)

Qmf = fuel consumption (kg/s)

Qvf = volume of fuel used (m3/s)

T = torque (Nm)

kg
f = diesel fuel density ( 0.84 )
L
y bt = break thermal efficiency

References

Abdulhadi, M. and Hassan, A. Internal Combustion

Engines. p.5.

Arante, M., Laurente, M., Villamor, L. (2014).

Performance Test of CI Engine. p. 11

Caliskan H., Tat M.E., and Hepbasli A. (2009).

Performance assessment of an internal combustion
engine at varying dead (reference) state temperatures,
Appl Therm Eng, 29, 3431-36.

Kopac M., and Kokturk L., (2005). Exergy

Determination of optimum speed of an internal
combustion engine by exergy analysis, Int. J. Exergy

Kachhad M. and Vegad G. (2006). Study and

Testing of CI engine by Rope Brake Dynamometer.
pp. 3-5.
APPENDIX

Table 1. Throttle position at 25%

Heating Value
SPEED TORQUE(N-m) POWER (kW) EFFICIENCY
Fuel (Qf) (kW)
1400 2.2928 0.84 0.1232 5.37

1300 2.352 1.24 0.1688 7.18

1200 3.1428 2.37 0.2978 9.47

1100 3.255 3.1 0.3571 10.97

Table 2. Throttle position at 50%

Heating Value
SPEED TORQUE(N-m) POWER (kW) EFFICIENCY
Fuel (Qf) (kW)
3000 4.6698 0.19 0.05969 1.2782

2800 4.9936 0.27 0.07917 1.5854

2600 9.5936 3.8 1.0346 10.7842

2400 12.152 6.4 1.60085 13.2365

Table 3. Throttle position at 75%

Heating Value
SPEED TORQUE(N-m) POWER (kW) EFFICIENCY
Fuel (Qf) (kW)
3600 5.2076 0.4 0.1508 2.8958

3400 15.8505 9.66 3.4394 21.699

3200 28.0429 12.68 4.2491 15.1521

3000 33.142 13.03 4.0935 12.3514