Optimisation of intake parameters for diesel engine fuelled with diesel-tamarind seed methyl ester biodiesel blend by Taguchi method

The present experimental work is focused on the use of Taguchi method to evaluate the optimum intake parameters to obtain the enhanced engine performance characteristics of diesel engine fuelled with TSME 20 (80% diesel and 20% Tamarind seed methyl ester) biodiesel blend. Injection pressure (IP), injection timing (IT) and exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) were considered as input parameters and each parameter at three levels. Brake thermal efficiency (BTE), brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC), hydrocarbon (HC), oxides of nitrogen (NOX) and smoke opacity (SO) were chosen as performance parameters. In this study, Taguchi L27 orthogonal array (OA) was considered. Taguchi method is highly effective when dealing with responses influenced by several parameters; it significantly minimises the number of tests needed to model and optimise the responses influenced by various input parameters. In addition, an ANOVA test was conducted for the performance parameters to evaluate individual input parameters and its percentage contribution. It was found that IT has most significant on BTE; NOX and smoke emission was highly influenced by EGR rate, followed by IT and IP.