Published Paper Details:

Automobiles have become critically indispensable to our modern life style. On the other hand, future of automobiles, built on the internal combustion engines, has been badly hit by the twin problems due to diminishing fuel supplies and environmental degradation. Thus, it is very important to identify some clean-burning, renewable, alternative fuels to ensure the safe survival of internal combustion engines. In the present paper investigations were carried out to evaluate the performance of two-stroke, single cylinder spark ignition (SI) engine with alcohol blended (80% gasoline and 20% ethanol by volume) having copper coated combustion chamber [copper-(thickness, 300 ?) coated on piston crown, and inner side of cylinder head]. Performance parameters [brake thermal efficiency, exhaust gas temperature and volumetric efficiency] were determined at various values of brake mean effective pressure of the engine, while combustion characteristics [peak pressure, maximum rate of pressure rise, time of occurrence of peak pressure and maximum heat release] were evaluated at full load operation of the engine with alcohol blended gasoline. Comparative studies were made on performance parameters and combustion characteristics with conventional SI engine with pure gasoline operation. Brake thermal efficiency increased with alcohol blended gasoline with both versions of the combustion chamber. Copper-coated combustion chamber (CCCC) showed improved performance and combustion parameters when compared with conventional engine (CE) with both test fuels.