Effects of Different LPG Fuel Systems on Performances of Variable Compression Ratio Single Cylinder Engine

Since the early 20^th century, most ground vehicles are driven with gasoline and diesel. The degradation of the environment affects human on earth unless the quality of the air is improved. One of the alternative fuels, LPG, is potentially capable of lowering vehicular emissions when compared to gasoline or diesel. There is a penalty in power output resulting from the use of LPG because the engine can induce less amount of air with Mixer system comparing with gasoline engine. Currently, the liquid-phase LPG is injected into the intake port of the engine, the fuel vaporizes enroute to the combustion chamber. Therefore, the performance and combustion processes of the tested engine are investigated with different LPG fuel systems. The test engine was developed and named heavy-duty VACRE. The test engine for this work operates 1400rpm with MBT conditions. The major conclusions of the work include; 1) The power output of LPi system with liquid-phase is approximately 17% higher than that of vapor-phase Mixer system due to increases of volumetric efficiency. And the MBT spark timing of LPi system is approximately 25% more advanced than that of Mixer system at λ value 1.0; 2) The LPi system shows both the maximum heat release rate and the cumulative heat release to be approximately 20% higher than the Mixer system; 3) Maximum cylinder pressure decrease with increase of compression ratio and a point of maximum cylinder pressure is delayed with high compression ratio.