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This research investigated the effects of ethanol blending with methanol-gasoline as fuels in spark ignition engine and how it affects engine performance and emissions. Four ethanol-methanol-gasoline (GEM) blends were prepared with variable ethanol concentrations (0%, 5%, 10%, 15%) and constant methanol concentration (10%) and denoted as M10, E5M10, E10M10, and E15M10 in reference to each respective alcohol constituents. Physicochemical properties testing revealed that density and kinematic viscosity of GEM fuel blends increases with ethanol concentration. E15M10 has shown the most increase in density and kinematic viscosity with 10.7% and 18.7% increase respectively. In contrast, calorific value decreased as ethanol concentration decreases. E15M10 displayed the lowest calorific value at 16.9% lower than gasoline. Meanwhile, engine performance and emissions test showed that GEM fuels generally possess increased average Brake Thermal Efficiency (BTE) than pure gasoline. However, average Brake Specific Fuel Consumption (BSFC) for pure gasoline is lower. E15M10 displayed highest increment of BSFC at 17.2% average increase. Meanwhile, E10M10 displayed the highest improvement in BTE with an average of 9.4% increase. Exhaust emissions indicate that all GEM blends produced increased carbon dioxide (CO2) and oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions while carbon monoxide (CO) emissions decreases. E15M10 showed the most reduction in CO emissions with 90.6% decrease while E10M10 has shown the most increased CO2 and NOx emissions with 110% and 6.7 times increase respectively. In conclusion, up to 15% volume of ethanol blending with 10% volume methanol-gasoline was able to improve engine performance and emissions in terms of BTE and CO emissions.

The in-cylinder flow characteristics of a four-stroke, four-valve, pent-roof small engine of motorcycle at engine speeds from 2000 rpm to 4000 rpm were studied using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The aim of this study was to investigate the in-cylinder flow characteristics of small engines, including tumble, swirl, turbulent kinetic energy (TKE), angular momentum, in-cylinder air mass, turbulent velocity, turbulent length scale, and air flow pattern (in both intake and compression strokes) under motoring conditions. The engine geometry was created using SolidWorks, then was exported and analyzed using CONVERGE, a commercial CFD method. Grid independence analysis was carried out for this small engine and the turbulence model was observed using the renormalized group (RNG) k-ɛ model. The pressure boundary conditions were used to define the fluid pressure at the intake and exhaust of the port. The results showed that the increase in the engine speed caused the swirl flow in the small engine to be irregularly shaped. The swirl flow had a tendency to be stable and almost constant in the beginning of the compression stroke and increased at the end of compression stroke. However, the increase of in engine speed had no significant effect on the increase in tumble ratio, especially during the intake stroke. There was an increase in tumble ratio due to the increase in engine speed at the end of compression stroke, but only a marginal increase. The increase in engine speed had no significant effect on the increase in angular momentum, TKE, or turbulent velocity from the early intake stroke until the middle of the intake stroke. However, the angular momentum increased due to the increase in engine speed from the middle of the intake stroke to the end of compression stroke, and the angular momentum achieved the biggest increase when the engine speed rose from 3000 to 4000 rpm by 10 % at the end of the intake stroke. The increase in engine speed caused an increase of TKE and turbulent velocity from the middle of intake stroke until the end of compression stroke. Moreover, the biggest increase of TKE and turbulent velocity occurred when the engine speed rose from 3000 to 4000 rpm at the middle of intake stroke around 50 % and 25 %, respectively. Turbulent length scales appeared to be insensitive to increasing engine speed, especially in the intake stroke until 490 °CA. From that point, the value of the turbulent length scale increased as engine speed increased. The biggest increase in the turbulent length scales occurred when the intake valve was almost closed (around 20 %) and the engine speed was within two specific ranges (2000 to 3000 rpm and 3000 to 4000 rpm). Regarding the effect of engine speed, there were no significant effects upon the accumulated air mass in the small engine. The increase in engine speed caused an increase of turbulence in the combustion chamber during the late stages of the compression stroke. The increase in turbulence enhanced the mixing of air and fuel and made the mixture more homogeneous. Moreover, the increase in turbulence directly increased the flame propagation speed. Further research is recommended using a new design with several types of intake ports as well as combinations of different intake ports and some type of piston face, so that changes in air flow characteristics in small engines can be analyzed. Finally, this study is expected to help decrease the number of experiments necessary to obtain optimized systems in small engines.

This chapter explains in detail an experimental overview of the application of ethanol-diesel blends as fuel in a diesel engine. The experiment was carried out at various engine loads and ethanol percentages. The experiments were performed using neat diesel fuel, 2.5%, 5%, and 7.5% ethanol-diesel blends with 1,500 rpm of the engine working speed at three different loads namely 0, 10, and 40 Nm. Several engine parameters data such as torque, fuel consumption, cylinder pressure, air intake flow, engine coolant temperature, the exhaust gas temperature, lubricating oil temperature, and exhaust emission were collected. The combustion or heat release of the engine then was calculated and analyzed. The results show several interesting features from heat release phenomena in every combustion process from the different fuel blends. The results indicate that the increasing of ethanol fraction in the ethanol-diesel blends causes the maximum of cylinder pressure and the heat release value is also increased.

A study on combustion of range extender spark ignition engine fueled with biogas was conducted using a simulation method in BOOST AVL software. The study was conducted using a two cylinders range extender based spark ignition engine for 35 kW of an electric vehicle fueled with gasoline-biogas mixed varied from 0 to 100% by volume. The biogas fuel in this study is represented as high purity biogas after purifying process which mainly contains CH4 or methane. The engine was operate on 3500 rpm and biogas was fumigated into the intake manifold. The results showed that the highest incylinder pressure obtained from engine fueled with 80% biogas. Meanwhile, the lowest in-cylinder temperature resulted from the engine fueled with 100% of biogas. Finally, the emission of CO and HC increase with the increases of biogas content, while the NOx is decrease when the biogas content increases.

Conventional diesel engine have a problem with exhaust gas emission where there is a trade of NOx and soot formation inhibits with emission regulation. For this problem, this paper explores the effect of volatility of fuel in on performance and emission in diesel engine. Diesel fuel was blended with N heptane as a volatility fuel into different massbased fraction (0%, 20 %, 40%, 60%, 80%). Thermodynamic Boost AVL simulation software under two engine load condition (10 Nm and 50 Nm) were simulated at 2200 rpm. The model of the engine using Yanmar TF 155 with 102 x 105 bore and stroke with 17,8 compression ratios. The start of combustion was fixed at 5°CA BTDC with 80-degree combustion duration for all test cases. Pressure in the combustion chamber shows a decrease of up to 15 percent for loads between 10 Nm to 50 Nm loads. The addition of volatility of the fuel indicates the atomization of the fuel and the process of mixing the fuel changes during the ignition delay process. Rate of heat release shows a decrease of up to 7 percent for loads between 10 Nm to 50 Nm loads. In the case of the volatility fuel of diesel/normal heptane, the rate of heat release (ROHR) shows that the higher volatility produced lower and faster than a mixture with less volatility. The high-volatility fuel has effect on NOx and soot emissions. At 10 Nm load and 80% Normal Heptane, the NOx concentration decreased 40 %. While running under 50 Nm load and 80% of Normal Heptane, the NOx concentration decreased 14 %. This is a advantaged of replacing the volatility fuel-air mixture causing a reduction in the heating value of air and fuel. Raising the load increases soot concentration.

Influence of EGR and intake boost on GCI engine fueled with gasoline-biodiesel blend using early single injection mode was investigated in this study. Tests were conducted on a single-cylinder direct-injection CI engine, with 5% by volume of biodiesel proportion in gasoline fuel blend. The engine control parameters namely EGR rate and intake pressure variation were adjusted to investigate their influences on combustion and emissions of the GCI engine with early single injection mode at 40 oCA BTDC. It is found that changes in EGR rates and intake boosting effect on performance, combustion, and emission of GCI engine with early injection mode.

A study was conducted to compare gasoline with the addition of 5% by volume of biodiesel (GB05) to 100% neat diesel using the multiple injection strategies in a gasoline compression ignition (GCI) engine. The engine was tested at 1200 rpm using 70 MPa of injection pressure and multiple injections, which consisted of a pilot injection at the 350-degree crank angle before top dead center (°C A BTDC) for approximately 1140 μs, followed by the main injection at 40 °C A BTDC for around 350 μs. The results show that low-temperature combustion can be achieved for GB05 with multiple injections at an in-cylinder temperature of approximately 1800 K. The heat release rates (HRR) for multiple injections of GB05 were lower than that for a single injection of 100% diesel. However, it is higher than those of multiple injections of 100% diesel and a single injection of GB05. Using multiple injections and increasing the temperatures of the intake, oil and engine coolant could result in improved combustion and engine efficiency. Multiple injections of GB05 showed decreased carbon monoxide (CO) emissions, which could be due to the pilot injection of GB05. The biodiesel content and using gasoline as a highly volatile fuel in GB05 showed the significant effect of lowering total hydrocarbon (THC) and CO emissions. However, nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions from GB05 for both the multiple and single-injection modes seem to be higher than those of multiple injections of 100% diesel and even higher than those of a single injection of 100% diesel, which is due to the oxygen content in the GB05 fuel.

A numerical study was conducted to investigate the autoignition mechanism for controlling combustion phasing in a homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engine fueled with DME using zero-dimensional commercial software in a detailed chemical-kinetics model and continued experimentally using single cylinder compression ignition engine. The exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and boosting method where applied to control the combustion phenomena. The results indicate that EGR addition slows down the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ), which contributes to the amount of high temperature heat release by reducing the rate of hydroxyl radical (OH). Since too much EGR reduces the power and raises the carbon monoxide (CO), investigations focus on the autoignition characteristics of DME at boosting with EGR and their effects on variations of autoignition timings, combustion durations in two-stage combustion process in-detail using a contribution matrix to the heat release. It was found that longer duration of cool-flame with boosting due to increased oxygen concentration in the mixture, which finally enhanced the intermediate species reactivity but the duration of combustion dominantly depend on the EGR addition.

The study on gasoline compressed ignition (GCI) engine was conducted in an experiment using biodiesel additive (5% and 20%) into gasoline, compared to neat diesel fuel with single injection strategy. The experiment was performed using a single cylinder direct injection diesel engine, naturally aspirated, 4 valves SOHC and 498 cm3 of displacement volume. The engine was tested at 1200 rpm using 70 MPa of injection pressure, single injection at 40 oCA BTDC, and 800 μs of injection duration. The result showed that the higher biodiesel content in the fuel gives effect to the higher cylinder pressure. The small and high amount of biodiesel in gasoline resulted almost similar character and value of IMEP. The lower biodiesel content in the gasoline fuel was resulted the lower thermal efficiency of the GCI engine. Furthermore, the increasing amount of biodiesel in the gasoline fuel caused decreased THC and CO, however, due to the high oxygen content of biodiesel will make the NOx emission increase.

Among the alternative fuels, hydrogen shows great potential as fuel and energy carrier. Hydrogen fuel is a renewable fuel with low emissions, odourless, non-toxic and has a wide align flammability in internal combustion engine. The combination between hydrogen diesel dual fuels with Homogeneous Charges Compression Ignition (HCCI) as a new combustion technology was observed in this paper. One of the problems of HCCI is combustion auto ignition control of the mixture of fuel used and the high heat release produced. In recent years, several studies about the HCCI method with dual fuel is that it requires new infrastructure to supply two fuels at once to the combustion engine. For this reason, it is endeavored to use multiple fuels into one fuel (using reforming parts) before injecting to internal combustion engine. The results of CFD study several injection timing on HCCI with dual fuel hydrogen diesel fuel, the highest pressure value in the combustion chamber was achieved at 107 bar pressure 360 degrees CA. Whereas by using the conventional method only obtained a pressure of 72 bar 363 degrees CA. In addition, the rate of heat release value with the HCCI method was 127 J / deg. at 10 deg. BTDC, compared to the conventional method which only reaches 32 J / deg. at 1 deg. ATDC. It is clear that there is heat transfer to BTDC before TDC, due to the homogeneity of the fuel in the HCCI method.

Compressed natural gas (CNG) is one of the alternative fuels that has a great potential in the near future. The cyclic variation of a diesel engine combustion fueled with CNG and ignited by pilot fuel with different fuel volatility was investigated and presented in this study. To investigate the combustion characteristics of diesel dual fuel engine, a single cylinder diesel engine has been modified to use CNG as fuel. CNG was fed into the intake manifold by a mixer before entering the combustion chamber. The engine was operated at a constant speed of 1400 rpm and variable loads. An engine indicating system was used to sample and record the engine cylinder pressure for 100 consecutive cycles. The combustion data were then analyzed for the maximum cylinder pressure for each cycle and its derivative parameter (rate of heat release). The cyclic variation is indicated by the mean value, standard deviation, and coefficient of variation of the maximum pressure. In higher engine load operation, the cyclic variability is found to be reduced. In addition, volatile pilot fuel resulted in more stable combustion especially at low load.

The airflow in the engine cylinder is known to greatly affect the performance of the engine. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to evaluate the flow characteristics of the in-cylinder small engine to see the effect of the intake port configuration at equivalent rated engine speed using simulation model under various intake valve lift conditions. Geometry engine created using CAD software, then exported and analyzed using CONVERGE. The turbulence model is observed using a modified model (RNG) k-ɛ. The pressure boundary conditions are used to determine the pressure fluid at the intake and exhaust port. The result shows that the change combination of the intake port give effect to swirl ratio value. The helical intake port with same direction have the highest swirl ratio during intake and compression stroke around thirteen times compare to the original model in valve lift maximum. The change combination of the intake port also give effect to the tumble ratio where the maximum tumble ratio occurs at the helical port with same direction where the maximum increase at 460 °CA around 83 % and the minimum tumble ratio occurs at helical port with opposite direction where the maximum decrease at 460 °CA around 83 %. The change combination of the intake port also give effect to increase the turbulent kinetic energy where the maximum increase around 300 % for model with same direction and 240 % for model with opposite direction and length scale also increase 35 % for model with same direction and 40 % for model with opposite direction. Finally, it is concluding that the analysis carried in this work is useful in predicting the flow and in-turn optimizing combustion chamber of the engine.

This paper reports the comparison of two methods of distance measuring using a digital camera and computing resources namely: Pose from Orthographic Projection and Triangle Similarity. Both methods incorporating a computer vision algorithm to properly functioned. Specifically, this report describes the utilization of such methods for vehicular application, for example, the inter-vehicular distance estimation, hence, to improve safety driving moreover to support the developing Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems ADAS. Each method constructed in an algorithm wrote in Python running in a Raspberry Pi computer equipped with a suitable camera. To process the incoming images, an OpenCV library was tasked to conduct a classification to distinguish vehicle-like features in an image frame from the rest of the universe. Haar cascade classifier was chosen to perform the image features classification. The algorithm then annotates and marks the classified features as a candidate for a vehicle-like object. The classifier was trained by a precompiled dataset. Both methods compared for the best performance on three distance measurement: 10, 15, and 20 meters. With experiment setup, the best distance to measure was 15 meters with small error to the ground truth.

An experimental study was conducted on a single cylinder gasoline compression ignition (GCI) engine for gasoline-biodiesel (GB) blends from 5 to 20% by volume with varying starts of injection (SOI). In particular, the aim was to examine the combustion phenomena and exhaust emissions of the engine for the various SOI and chosen GB blends compared with neat diesel fuel. The engine was running with 1200 rpm, 70 MPa of injection pressure, 800 μs of injection duration and various SOI from early injection timing (before top dead center (BTDC) 75°CA) to around top dead center (TDC) BTDC 18°CA. The results showed that the earlier the SOI of GB blends, the shorter the ignition delay compared to diesel fuel. Besides, the GB blends resulted in almost the same combustion duration as diesel fuel both for earlier and later SOI. The coefficient of variability (COV) of IMEP GB blends (under 3%) for every SOI is clear evidence of combustion stability. Furthermore, the thermal efficiency for GB blends was found to be almost equivalent with diesel fuel for all conditions. In the case of emission, GB blends produce lower HC compared to diesel, as expected, because of their homogeneous mixing capabilities. However, a higher NOx emission from GB blends was observed, which might be a result of excess oxygen in the fuel.

Fossil fuels as the main energy source of every country now predicted will be ended no more than 40 years. Therefore, alternative fuel such as biofuel has been developed by many countries including Indonesia. Indonesia as one of the highest populated country and has wide areas of agriculture, forest and crop field is potential to be the highest biofuel production in the world. However, after one decade since the Government of Indonesia launched the energy Policy in 2006, appears to be interesting that the biofuels progress in Indonesia seen not well developed. One of the basic weaknesses is the program only applied to the specific area with a high biofuel resource by central government without support by local government. Furthermore, the target of biofuel programs seems to be very high or too ambitious, while the condition of the people still very traditional which can be seen from the lifestyle and their energy consumption. This paper provides in detail a review of several topics related to resource, energy consumption, policy and the research and development activities of biofuel in Indonesia. As a discussion, some recommendation provided to encourage the biofuel development in the near future.

Emission control strategy on GCI engines fueled with 5% by volume of biodiesel blended in gasoline was conducted in this study. The study was conducted using a 1-cylinder DI-CI engine. The engine was fueled with 5% by volume of biodiesel blended in gasoline. GCI combustion with the pilot, and main direct injections were applied in this study. Various EGR rate and intake pressure were also adapted to explore their effects on combustion and exhaust pollution control of the CI engines. It is found that gasoline-biodiesel blend with GCI combustion mode and various parameters especially EGR and intake boosting rate takes effect on the improvement of combustion characteristics which is closely related to HC, CO, NOx, and smoke emissions, respectively.

Numerical methods are used to predict HCCI engine performance, which is more cost-effective than experimentation alone. Specific strategies used numerical methods in HCCI an engine with three-dimensional modelling of combustion on 1 cylinder HCCI combustion engine fuelled by Diesel fuel is described in this paper. The 3 D model is performed on AVL Fire software. The combustion with basic parameters including different start time of Injections (SOI) with the same duration of combustion (BD), indicating pressure in chamber and emissions (Nitric Oxide and soot) were evaluate. The modelling results show that the highest value of pressure in the combustion chamber on the HCCI method was achieved at a pressure of 107 bar 360 deg CA, while in conventional combustion methods it was achieved at 72 bar 363 deg CA. On the other hand the highest peak heat transfer rate is 127 J / deg at 10 deg BTDC, whereas for conventional method occurs at 32 J / deg at 1deg ATDC. So there is a shift of heat transfer toward to BTDC before TDC, due to the already homogeneous fuel in the HCCI method. The combustion process in HCCI engines increases emissions with high NO emissions and reduces Soot emissions.

This study was conducted computationally by investigating the effects of intake temperature and equivalence ratio on an HCCI engine fueled with natural gas in order to confirm the mechanism of autoignition reactivity. The contribution matrix was used as the main method for determining elementary reactions including fuel series reactions, H 2 O 2 loop reactions and H 2 –O 2 system reactions. The results showed that two reactions were involved dominantly in the φ = 0.4 and Tin = 470 K condition, specifically reaction number 21 (R21) and reaction number 26 (R26). Meanwhile, there were four reactions involved in the φ = 0.5 and Tin = 430 K condition, namely reaction number 26 (R26), reaction number 111 (R111), reaction number 125 (R125) and reaction number 237 (R237). Advanced autoignition with lower combustion duration was occurred when intake air temperature was increased. The misfiring occurred at φ = 0.1 and knocking at φ = 0.7. The start temperature for the thermal ignition (TI) stage was advanced about 9° CA, and the absolute heat release rates of H 2 O 2 loop reactions and H 2 –O 2 system reactions were slightly increased. Delayed autoignition timings with lower combustion duration occurred due to increasing equivalence ratio. The start timing of TI stage was advanced about 2° CA with increasing of equivalence ratios.

An experimental study was conducted to evaluate the performance and emission of spark ignition (SI) engine fuelled with CNG at low and high load condition. This study is the series activity of research, design and development of conversion kit for gas fuelled vehicle in the author laboratory. The SI engine that used in this study is Honda L15A, four cylinders, 1,497 cm 3 using electronic control unit. Three different fuel system namely standard gasoline fuel system, commercially CNG conversion kit and proposed CNG conversion kit designed by Research Centre for Electrical Power and Mechatronics–Indonesian Institute of Sciences, all of them utilized with fuel injection system and electronic control unit were used in this study. The test was conducted on the 25% and 80% throttle opening position with engine speed over 4,800 rpm. The results show that the maximum brake power at 25% throttle opening position of SI engine using commercially CNG conversion kit (19.00 kW) is almost same with SI engine using proposed CNG conversion kit (19.68 kW), while for 80% throttle opening position the maximum brake power of SI engine using proposed CNG conversion kit (38.67 kW) is higher than commercially CNG conversion kit (34.29 kW). The emission of CO and HC at 80% throttle opening position is lower than at 25% throttle opening position for both of SI engine using commercially and proposed CNG conversion kit.

The use of bioethanol as supplementary fuel for diesel engine has widely been used and result a positive effect. This paper shows the performance map of indirect diesel engine fuelled with diesel bioethanol emulsion. Experiment was carried out on two cylinders indirect diesel engine were coupled to eddy current dynamometer. The engine is loaded by the dynamometer, fuel consumption by AVL fuel balance, air consumption by TGS hot wire anemometer, emission analyzer by Horiba Mexa 720 and Sukyoung SY-GA 401, while Okudakoki DSM 240 for smoke level. The experiment is focused on specific fuel consumption (BSFC) and its emissions such as; nitrogen oxides (NO X ), carbon monoxide (CO), and the concentration of the exhaust gas (smoke). Test is conducted on 1,500 rpm, 1,750 rpm and 2,000 rpm with gradual load for every 10 Nm from 0 Nm up to 70 Nm. Various percentages of bioethanol in diesel is tested, start from neat diesel fuel (DE0), diesel fuel with 2.5% bioethanol (DE2.5), diesel duel with 5% of bioethanol (DE5) and DE10 for diesel fuel with 10% of bioethanol with 1% of emulsifier are added. Performance maps are created using software Uniplot. At 83% full load (10.81 kW), the BSFC is reduced up to 2.62% at 1987 rpm on DE10 mixture, while at low rotation (1,481 rpm) DE2.5 mixture will increase fuel consumption up to 4.51% compared to neat diesel (DE0). The result of NO X emissions is inconsistent, but the trends are increasing. Trends for CO emission are reduced, maximum reduction up to 71.43% at DE10 and 1987 rpm. The exhaust gas concentration tends to decrease, maximum reduction up to 65.87% on DE10 mixture, 1,734 rpm and 83% full load operation. The addition of bioethanol up to 10% is tends to improve the combustion process at high speed.

In this study, range extender engine designed should be able to meet the power needs of a power generator of hybrid electrical vehicle that has a minimum of 18 kW. Using this baseline model, the following range extenders will be compared between conventional SI piston engine (Baseline, BsL), engine capacity 1998 cm3, and efficiency-oriented SI piston with engine capacity 999 cm3 and 499 cm3 with 86 mm bore and stroke square gasoline engine in the performance, emission prediction of range extender engine, standard of charge by using engine and vehicle simulation software tools. In AVL Boost simulation software, range extender engine simulated from 1000 to 6000 rpm engine loads. The highest peak engine power brake reached up to 38 kW at 4500 rpm. On the other hand the highest torque achieved in 100 Nm at 3500 rpm. After that using AVL cruise simulation software, the model of range extended electric vehicle in series configuration with main components such as internal combustion engine, generator, electric m...

An experiment on the application of diesel and ethanol blends as fuel in diesel engine was carried out at various engine loads and ethanol percentages. The experiments were performed using solar, E2.5%, E5%, E7.5%, and E10% ethanol-diesel blends and 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 Nm engine loads. Several engine parameters i.e. power, brake specific fuel consumption, brake thermal efficiency, the exhaust gas temperature, and lubricating oil temperature were investigated. As a complement of the experiment, the exhaust emission characteristic of CO, HC and smoke were also investigated. The results indicate that the engine power and the indicated mean effective pressure increase with increasing of ethanol percentage. The brake specific fuel consumption and exhaust gas temperature decrease, meanwhile the lubricating oil temperature increase with increasing the ethanol content. From the experiments, as the increase of ethanol percentage content, the emission of CO, HC and smoke decrease.

The experiment was conducted on a conventional direct injection diesel engine. Performance test was carried out to evaluate the performance and emission characteristics of a conventional diesel engine that operates on ethanol-diesel blends. The test procedure was performed by coupling the diesel engine on the eddy current dynamometer. Fuel consumption was measured using the AVL Fuel Balance, and a hotwire anemometer was used to measure the air consumption. Some of the emission test devices were mounted on the exhaust pipe. The test of fuel variations started from 100% diesel fuel (D100) to 2.5% (DE2.5), 5% (DE5), 7.5% (DE7.5), and 10% (DE10) ethanol additions. Performance test was conducted at 1500 rpm with load variations from 0 to 60 Nm by increasing the load on each level by 10 Nm. The addition of 5% ethanol to diesel (DE5) increased the average pressure of combustion chamber indication to 48% as well as reduced the specific fuel consumption to 9.5%. There were better exhaust emission characteristics at this mixture ratio than diesel engine which used pure diesel fuel (D100), the reduction of CO to 37%, HC to 44% and opacity to 15.9%.

Surface roughness and area play important role especially in deposition and reaction of the catalyst in the catalytic converter substrate. The aim of this paper is to show the modification of surface roughness and area of FeCrAl substrate for catalytic converter using ultrasonic method. The method was conducted by agitating the FeCrAl in 10 minutes 35 kHz ultrasonic cleaning bath. The surface roughness, morphology, and chemical components of FeCrAl catalytic converter substrate after ultrasonic treatment were analyzed using atomic force microscope (AFM) and examined with scanning electron microscope (SEM) in combination with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). The ultrasonic treatment assisted with Al2O3 powders successfully increased the roughness and surface area of FeCrAl better than SiC powders.

The cheap nickel oxide (NiO) is a potential catalyst candidate to replace the expensive available platinum group metals (PGM). However, the current methods to adhere the NiO powder on the metallic substrates are complicated. Therefore, this work explored the development of nickel oxide using nickel (Ni) on FeCrAl substrate through the combination of nickel electroplating and oxidation process for catalytic converter application. The approach was started with assessment of various nickel electroplating process based on the weight gain during oxidation. Then, the next experiment used the best process in which the pre-treatment using the solution of SiC and/or Al2O3 in methanol. The specimens then were carried out to short term oxidation process using thermo gravimetric analysis (TGA) at 1000 oC. Meanwhile, the long term oxidation process was conducted using an automatic furnace at 900, 1000 and 1100 oC. The atomic force microscopy (AFM) was used for surface analysis in nanometer range scale. Meanwhile, roughness test was used for roughness measurement analysis in micrometer range scale. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) attached with energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) were used for surface and cross section morphology analysis. The specimen of FeCrAl treated using ultrasonic prior to nickel electroplating showed the lowest weight gain during oxidation. The surface area of specimens increased after ultrasonic treatment. The electroplating process improved the high temperature oxidation resistance. In short term oxidation process indicated that the ultrasonic with SiC provided the lower parabolic rate constant (kp) and the Al2O3 and NiO layers were also occurred. The Ni layer was totally disappeared and converted to NiO layer on FeCrAl surface after long term oxidation process. From this work, the ultrasonic treatment prior to nickel electroplating was the best method to adhere NiO on FeCrAl substrate.