Performance, combustion and emission characteristics of a diesel engine fuelled with diesel fuel + corn oil + alcohol ternary blends

A blend of diesel fuel and corn oil in the ratio of 80:20 (v/v) is prepared. 1-butanol and 1-pentanol are mixed separately with the binary blend in different ratios (4:96, 7:93, and 10:90 v/v) to prepare ternary blends. Pure diesel fuel and ternary blends are tested at various engine speeds (1000-2500 rpm) and at full throttle position. A regression model and its trigonometric Fourier series are proposed to represent the variation of in-cylinder pressure vs. crank angle measured by the author. The regression model and its Fourier series are compared to the Gaussian function of second-order using the in-cylinder pressure data measured by the author and different authors. On average, the ternary blends have lower brake effective efficiency (0.7347 [Formula: see text]-4.0553 [Formula: see text]) and peak heat release rate (5.1113 [Formula: see text]-6.3083 [Formula: see text]), compared to diesel fuel. On average, the ternary blends have a shorter combustion duration (0.4045 [Formula: see text]-7.0236 [Formula: see text]) and longer ignition delay (8.3635 [Formula: see text]-13.9110 [Formula: see text]) relative to diesel fuel. The ternary blends produce lower CO (8.4769 [Formula: see text]-13.1598 [Formula: see text]), HC (30.0073 [Formula: see text]-36.2523 [Formula: see text]), and smoke (4.8566 [Formula: see text]-7.4181 [Formula: see text]) emissions while higher NO_X (3.2691 [Formula: see text]-10.8795 [Formula: see text]) emission. The estimated values from the proposed regression model and its Fourier series coincide quite well with in-cylinder pressure data measured by the author and different authors.