Parametric Study and Determination of Spark Advancement Angle Required for Different Blends of Petrol and Ethanol for SI Engine

Environmental concerns as well as limited oil reserves have developed the interest of Indian Government in renewable energy sources. An increasing number of spark ignition, 4-stroke internal combustion engines calls for the use of ethanol blends at larger scale. Today the majority of the engines that are using low percentage ethanol blends are designed to run on petrol only. Researchers have time and over proved the fact that ethanol only up-to 10 % can be used in existing vehicles via experimentations and analysis of performance parameters and emission characteristics. Studies have also been implied that using ethanol blends above 10 % in your existing petrol vehicles without any modification will affect vehicles performance and life considerably over time. The objective of this paper is to come up with the exact advancement angle for different blends of ethanol making the existing petrol engines compatible to run on ethanol blends above 10 %. Tests were performed on four stroke, air cooled single cylinder engine with 3600 as rated RPM with different electrical loading conditions for five different blends (E0, E20, E40, E60 and E80). After analyzing the fuel consumption, AFR, HC and CO emissions for different blends, it has been found that there is a requirement of spark advance of 5 for every 20 % increase of ethanol in blend with petrol.