Experimental Investigations to Study the Comparative Effect of LPG and Gasoline on Performance and Emissions of SI Engine

The growing environmental concern and increasing petroleum crisis have led many to look for more cleaner, efficient and cost effective alternative transportation fuels. This paper deals with an experimental investigation on performance and emission characteristics of a S I engine using petrol and LPG. Several tests have been conducted with different loading and speed with gasoline and LPG as fuels and engine performance parameters like brake thermal efficiency, volumetric efficiency, brake specific fuel consumption along with cost analysis were studied. The relative variation of these parameters has been focused in the present paper. The objective of the present study was to test the suitability of LPG as a fuel for low compression ratio S I engines used in light duty vehicles with the minimum possible modifications to be introduced in the engine. The engine running with LPG exhibits significantly lower level of exhaust emissions and cost effectiveness however there is reduction in the thermal efficiency relative to the engine run on gasoline. The significant reduction in the HC and CO emissions (65% and 50% respectively) is observed in the test programme.