International Journal of Automotive Technology, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 289-298 (2016) DOI 10.1007/s12239-016-0029-6 Copyright © 2016 KSAE/ 089-11 pISSN 1229-9138/ eISSN 1976-3832 289 COMPREHENSIVE EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON THE EFFECT OF BIODIESEL/DIESEL BLENDED FUEL ON COMMON-RAIL DI DIESEL ENGINE TECHNOLOGY S. JAROONJITSATHIAN 1, 2)* , N. NOOMWONGS 1) and K. BOONCHUKOSOL 1) 1) Department of Mechanical Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, Phayathai, Bangkok 10220, Thailand 2) PTT Research & Technology Institute, PTT Public Company Limited, 555 Vibhavadi Rangsit Rd., Chatuchak, Bangkok 10900, Thailand (Received 27 March 2015; Revised 10 July 2015; Accepted 11 August 2015) ABSTRACT-This research work aims to study the aspects of using biodiesel or FAME as a component blended in diesel fuel for common-rail DI engine technology. The specific engine experiments were designed for LD commercial engine [Toyota 2KD-FTV] to understand engine combustion process, engine performance and thermal efficiency when applying FAME blended fuel. In addition, the exhaust emission in HD diesel engine [HINO J08E] was evaluated by standard HD engine emission ESC and ELR test cycles. Furthermore, the severe 400-hour of HD engine durability tests for determining the limitation on using FAME blended fuel, have been conducted with B0, B10, B20 and B50. The result shows that using of FAME blended fuel in the HD common-rail DI engine, can be applied with some guidelines experimentally discovered by this research such as filter plugging that may occur when the content of biodiesel is up to 20 % or higher, and the critical fuel injector surface polishing wear, can be observed from B50 sample. In general, the higher biodiesel content will contribute to lower power output as well, thus too high biodiesel content will cause low engine power output. KEY WORDS : FAME, Biodiesel, Engine combustion, Engine performance, Engine durability test, Emission test NOMENCLATURE FAME : fatty acid methyl ester Common-rail DI : common-rail direct injection Bsfc : brake specific fuel consumption BTE : brake thermal efficiency IMEP : indicated mean effective pressure LD Engine : light-duty engine HD Engine : heavy-duty engine ECE R85 : European Commission – engine performance test code of conduct ESC : european stationary cycle ELR : european load response PM : particulate matter NOx : Oxide of Nitrogen TGF : total groove flocculation, % JPI : Japan Petroleum Institute TAN : Total Acid Number CRC : Coordinating Research Council WWFC : 5th Edition World-wide Fuel Charter, 1. INTRODUCTION Biodiesel or Fatty Acid Methyl Ester (FAME) is widely used in many countries especially those producing oil crops. Usually FAME, can be derived from various kind of feedstock such as rapeseed, soy bean, palm, jatropha, cotton or karanja and so on. Wide varieties of biodiesel’s originality leading to fuel quality differences, for example oxidation stability, cold flow property or pour point and cetane number, etc. However, there are some common fuel qualities of FAME which are mainly suitable for use as a diesel fuel such as viscosity, density, high quality fuel lubricity enhancer, high cetane number and sulfur free. The most promising raw material of FAME production, is palm oil in Thailand as well as Malaysia and Indonesia. Palm oil methyl ester has very high oxidation stability when compared with rapeseed and soy bean regarding its high saturated vegetable oil. But, its cloud point and cold flow properties are too high to use in cold climate. In addition, Palm oil is one of the best cooking oil for fried food, thus some people disagree to use food as a fuel. By the way, a net importer of crude oil like Thailand, still needs energy security policies to reduce the dependency on imported oil. Thus, Thailand has announced the B3.5 – B7 mandatory use nationwide since early 2014. Basha et al. (2009) have been reviewing the biodiesel papers and commented that most biodiesel gives shorter ignition delay than that of diesel fuel, and also gives lower peak of heat released rate in direct injected diesel engines. *Corresponding author. e-mail: somnuek.j@pttplc.com