EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS OF FOUR STROKE SINGLE CYLINDER PETROL ENGINE USING A PRE-HEATING SET-UP FOR METHANOL BLENDS

With ever increasing concern on energy security, future oil supplies, high performance of automobiles, the global community has been seeking for nonpetroleum alternative fuels. it leads to research in modifying the mechanical design and analysing its performance characteristics with vary in fuel used, applied load on engine, torque, lubrication etc. preheating is a method to increase the thermal efficiency of engine, decrease the humidity in inlet air supplied, reduce the undesired effects of cold start and in turn helps for complete combustion. The present research work was to analysis the performance characteristics of a four stroke DTS-I, single cylinder, air cooled, spark injection petrol fuelled with methanol blends in different concentrations. The results are compared with the modified engine in which the inlet air gets preheated. The engine test results showed improvement in all performance characteristics in modified engine. It results an increase in brake thermal efficiency by 4-6%, indicated thermal efficiency by 3-5% and improvement in Brake specific fuel consumption by 5.4% with comparison with normal engine