Performance analysis of an internal combustion engine operated on producer gas, in comparison with the performance of the natural gas and diesel engines

P. Raman and N.K. Ram

Energy, 2013, vol. 63, issue C, 317-333

Abstract: The growing economy and changing lifestyle have increased the demand for modern energy, like electricity. Globally 1.3 billion people are without access to electricity. In India, 289 million people do not have access to electricity. Decentralized distributed power generation using renewable energy is a competitive alternative for energy supply to all, with a sustainable growth. The performance of an internal combustion engine fueled with 100% producer gas was studied at variable load conditions. The engine was coupled with a 75 kWe power generator. Producer gas generated from a downdraft gasifier system was supplied to the engine. The overall power generation efficiency of 21% was achieved above 85% load. The power generation efficiency of the producer gas engine was estimated at variable load conditions. The influencing factors of the power generation efficiency of a producer gas engine, such as volumetric efficiency, energy density of the fuel mixture, adiabatic flame temperature, compression ratio and expansion ratio were studied in detail. A relation between volumetric efficiency, expansion ratio, compression ratio and thermal efficiency was established and verified. The efficiency of the engine estimated using the new method has a correlation coefficient of 0.99 with the efficiency estimated using the energy input and output.

Keywords: Producer gas; Internal combustion engine; Compression ratio; Expansion ratio; Power generation efficiency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544213008852
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:63:y:2013:i:c:p:317-333

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2013.10.033

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().