International Journal of Advances in Engineering & Technology, Nov. 2013. ©IJAET ISSN: 22311963 2286 Vol. 6, Issue 5, pp. 2286-2300 INVESTIGATIONS ON PERFORMANCE PARAMETERS OF CERAMIC COATED DIESEL ENGINE WITH TOBACCO SEED OIL BIODIESEL N. Venkateswara Rao 1 , M.V.S. Murali Krishna 2 and P.V.K. Murthy 2 1 Mechanical Engineering Department, Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology, Gandipet, Hyderabad-500 075, Andhra Pradesh, India, 2 Mechanical Engineering Department, Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology, Gandipet, Hyderabad-500 075, Andhra Pradesh, India, 3 Jayapraksan Group of Educational Institutions, Mahabubnagar, Andhra Pradesh, India, ABSTRACT The use of methyl esters of vegetable oil known as biodiesel are increasingly popular because of their low impact on environment, green alternate fuel. Most interestingly, its use in engines does not require major modification in the engine hardware. Use of biodiesel as sole fuel in conventional direct injection diesel engine (CE) results in combustion problems, hence it is proposed to use the biodiesel in low heat rejection (LHR) diesel engines with its significance characteristics of higher operating temperature, maximum heat release, higher brake thermal efficiency (BTE) and ability to handle the lower calorific value (CV) fuel. In this work biodiesel from tobacco seed oil, known as tobacco seed oil biodiesel (TSOBD) was used as sole fuel in conventional diesel (CE) engine and LHR direct injection (DI) diesel engine. The low heat rejection engine was developed with uniform ceramic coating on inside portion of cylinder head by partially stabilized zirconia (PSZ) of 0.5 mm thickness. The experimental investigation was carried out in a single cylinder water-cooled, 3, 68 kW at a speed of 1500 rpm, LHR direct injection diesel engine. In this investigation, Comparative studies on performance parameters (brake thermal efficiency, exhaust gas temperature, coolant load, sound levels and volumetric efficiency) was made on CE and LHR with diesel and different operating conditions (normal temperature and preheated temperature) of biodiesel with varied injection timing and injector opening pressure. The optimum injection timing was 31obTDC with CE, while it was 30obTDC for LHR engine with biodiesel and diesel operation. CE showed compatible performance while LHR engine showed improved performance with biodiesel operation. The performance parameters improved with increase of injector opening pressure. K EYWORDS: Alternate Fuels, Vegetable Oils, Biodiesel, LHR engine, Performance parameters. I. INTRODUCTION The world is presently confronted with the twin crises of fossil fuel depletion and environmental degradation. The fuels of bio origin can provide a feasible solution of this worldwide petroleum crisis (1-2). It has been found that the vegetable oils are promising substitute, because of their properties are similar to those of diesel fuel and they are renewable and can be easily produced. Rudolph Diesel, the inventor of the diesel engine that bears his name, experimented with fuels ranging from powdered coal to peanut oil. Several researchers [3-6] experimented the use of vegetable oils as fuel on diesel engine and reported that the performance was poor, citing the problems of high viscosity, low volatility and their polyunsaturated character. Viscosity can be reduced with preheating. Experiments were conducted [7-10] on preheated vegetable [temperature at which viscosity of the vegetable oils were matched to that of diesel fuel] oils and it was reported that preheated vegetable oils improved the performance marginally, decreased exhaust emissions of smoke and NOx