A study on the 0D phenomenological model for diesel engine simulation: Application to combustion of Neem methyl esther biodiesel

Following the validation in different operating points of the model on a four stroke 1 - cylinder direct injection diesel engine, the operating characteristics were predicted with an average error accuracy of about 15%. The relative error is, respectively, 10% for Sauter diameter, 12% for maximum penetration, 9.8% for peak pressure, 7.38% for peak temperature, 10.7% for NOx emission and 13.7% for engine power output. The model predicts higher Sauter mean diameter, higher fuel spray length and NOx emission for NMEB as compared to conventional diesel fuel which is in accordance with experimental results obtained on biodiesel fuels in previous researches. Methyl butyrate and methyl butanoate thermochemical data were used as surrogates for NMEB, the results obtained from the model were close, independently of the surrogate used for biodiesel. The average simulation time for a full cycle simulation was about 94.22 s, which gives to the model applicability for diesel engine optimization purposes. The results obtained were found satisfactory in terms of accuracy, algorithm simplicity and computer cost.