ENERGY GENERATION AND UTILIZATION

Ethanol Fuels Utilization
C. E. Goering,Principal Investigator C. Ritter, R. Parcell
University of Illinois

A DDC, 225-kW, two-cycle, CI engine was instrumented to evaluate denatured, 190-proof ethanol as a potential fuel for bus engines. A PC was programmed to take data while controlling the engine to operate on the modified Chicago Transit Authority engine cycle. The engine was operated on anhydrous ethanol for baseline data and then operated for 454 hours on the 190-proof ethanol. A 14% reduction in power during the 454 hours of running was traced to needle sticking in the injector nozzles; power was restored when new injectors were installed. The water in the fuel caused a reduction in NO;zx, CO, and HC emissions.

Evaluation of Vegetable Oil Fuels

C. E. Goering,Principal Investigator L. D. Savage, A. M. Meyer, B. D. Bliss, T. E. Briggs
University of Illinois

With USDA, an engine facility is being developed for accelerated evaluation of vegetable oil fuels. From experience, compression-ignition (CI) engines degrade when burning triglyceride forms of such fuels. Extended evaluation of such fuels in full-size engines is time consuming and expensive. The new facility features a small, two-cylinder CI engine; one cylinder runs on diesel fuel and the other on experimental fuel. Engine instrumentation measures the fraction of the load carried by each cylinder; any degradation caused by the experimental fuel can be detected by shifting the load to the other cylinder.