Application of Taguchi Method in the Optimization of Diesel Engine Parameters with Cuo/Water Nanofluid Coolant

Taguchi method is one of the most useful tool to optimize the engine input parameters. In this study, Taguchi method is used to find the optimal engine input parameters to minimize the exhaust emissions. A four stroke single cylinder diesel engine with different volume concentration of CuO/water nanofluids was used in this study. The CuOnanoparticles (about 27nm) was used to prepare the nanofluid based engine coolant. Three different volume concentrations (0.05%, 0.1% and 0.2%) of CuO/water nanofluids were prepared by using two step method. Three input parameters such as Nanofluid volume concentration, coolant flow rate and load were varied ar four levels and the exhaust emissions such as NOx, CO, HC and smoke emissions were recorded. The effectsof input parameters on exhaust emissions were investigated by using statistical methods of signal to Noise ratio and Analysis of variance (ANOVA) techniques. Results indicates that the load is the most significant factor for NOx and smoke emissions. Similarly, coolant flow rate is the most influencing factor for HC and CO emissions.