Investigation on the Performance of Fuel Stick Fuel Conditioner in Diesel Vehicle

In the present scenario of worldwide hype about the usage of fuel stick fuel conditioner in various types of vehicles, stationery engines and its associated benefits related to power output, fuel cost, pollution, durability of engine parts etc. the fuel industry of Ethiopia is preparing grounds to adopt such fuel conditioner in anticipation of better benefits. It is very much misleading in the absence of authoritative and extensive validation of the performance of such fuel conditioner in vehicles and engines. In this context to bring out the reality and to make it clear to the automotive industry and society of the country as a whole, a team from Mechanical and vehicle engineering department carried out a series of laboratory experiments to estimate the performance of the fuel stick conditioner in various types of vehicles and engine test rigs. The performance parameters like wheel power, wheel force and fuel consumption were measured under various operating conditions. This paper discusses the procedure and the results obtained in one of such experimentation done on Diesel vehicle using chassis dynamometer. The experiments were conducted with both pure diesel and diesel added with fuel stick conditioner under similar conditions. Comparison was made to understand the pros and cons of fuel stick conditioner. From this exhaustive experimentation it was found that the usage of fuel stick definitely helps in increasing wheel power and wheel force of diesel vehicles. Increase in fuel consumption was also observed which might be the result of cleaning effect of fuel stick on fuel lines. So it is recommended proper tune up of the vehicle is to be done before using diesel with fuel stick.