Performance of Diesel Engine Fueled with Ethanol-diesel Blends in Different Altitude Regions

In order to investigate the effects ethanol-diesel blends and altitude on the performance of diesel engine, the comparative experiments were carried out on the bench of turbo-charged diesel engine fueled with pure diesel (as prototype) and ethanol-diesel blends (E10, E15, E20 and E30) under different atmospheric pressures (81kPa, 90kPa and 100kPa). The experimental results indicate that the equivalent brake-specific fuel consumption (BSFC) of ethanol-diesel blends are better than that of diesel under different atmospheric pressures and that the equivalent BSFC gets great improvement with the rise of atmospheric pressure when the atmospheric pressure is lower than 90kPa. When the atmospheric pressure declines below 90kPa, the ethanol-diesel blends have a remarkable effect on the drop of soot emission. Contrarily, in the case that the atmospheric pressure is over 90kPa, the influence weakens. Nevertheless, smoke emissions decrease obviously with the increasing percentage of ethanol in blends.