International Journal of Energy Machinery, Vol. 5, No.1, pp. 918(2012.08) Copyright 2012KOCEN KOCEN12J101 - 9 - DIESEL ENGINE PERFORMANCE STUDY FOR BIO-FUEL: VEGETABLE OIL, A ALTERNATIVE SOURCE OF FUEL S. M. Ameer Uddin 1 , and A. K. Azad 2* 1,2 Department of Mechanical Engineering Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology BUET, Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh (Received date July3 th 2012 ; revised date August 3 th 2012) ABSTRACT An experimental study was made on bio-diesel prepared from vegetable oil i.e. mustard oil has been presented in this article. Without trans-esterification reaction, the mustard oil has been blended with diesel in different proportion of 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% and named as bio-diesel bland B20, B30, B40, and B50. During the fuel and bio-fuel have been tested it fuel properties in the laboratory, different ASTM standards were maintained to findout the properties of the bio-diesel. The characteristics of the bio-diesel blends have been carried out at different temperature. The blended bio-diesel have been tested on a four stroke, single cylinder DI diesel engine. The engine performance has been analyzed for different bio-diesel blends and compared to fossil diesel fuel . During the engine test, B20 and B30 have better performance than other bio-diesel blends. KEY WORDS: Heating value; Fuel properties; bsfc; bhp; Break mean effective pressure; Flash point; 1. INTRODUCTION The use of vegetable oils as an alternative fuel for diesel engines dates back to around a century. Due to rapid decline of crude oil reserve and increase in price, the use of vegetable oils is again prompted in many countries. Depending upon soil condition and climate, different nations are looking for different vegetable oils- for example, soybean oil in U.S.A., rapeseed and sunflower oil in Europe, palm oil in Malaysia and Indonesia, coconut oils in Philippines are being considered to substitute of diesel fuel. The potential of bio- diesel production from mustard oil have been found to be a promising fuel for diesel engine in a number of studies. Mustard (Brassica juncea) is a widely growing seed in Bangladesh. Many countries consider mustard oil as unsuitable for human consumption as it has a high content of a substance known as erucic acid which is harmful to the body. Mustard plant is characterized by yellowish green leaves and round stems with long inter-nodes. The grayish brown seeds are tiny and round in shape and on reacting with water emit a strong smell. It is generally used in cooking. Every year the production of mustard seed surpluses our demand for it. So our endeavor was to use the * Corresponding author. E-mail: azad_sgfl@yahoo.com