Evaluatution of diesel engine and farm tractor performance powered by cocodiesel (CME)

Abstract

Playing its role as a develaping country, lndanesia alsa facing the energy crisis, therefote, Indonesian governnent strongly promotes the utilizatton of alternative fuels As an agicultural cauntry, lndanesia incleed has a great potential of praclucing vegetable oils such as palm oil, Jatrapha oil, cacanut ail, etc., which are rcnewable mw mateialsfor biodiesel productian. The utilization of caconut oilas the raw matetialfor cocodiesel is very prospective, because Indonesia has 3.9 million ha af coconut tree, which is the largest in the world, and spreading along the coastal area. Applying cocodi*el as the altenative fuel for agicultural machinery and fishing vessel become very valuable, eapecially in the remote area where a huge amount of coconut oi! saurce is available while the price of petraleun dieselfuel js very high due to excesslve transpotTalian cost. This research is ained to evaluate lhe technical featutes of the applicatian of cocodiesel as the alternative fuel far statianary dieselengine as well as for agriculturcl ttactar. As the results afthis study, it was faund t'hat the diesel engine could run snaothly with al blendlng rctia of cacadiesel fuel without notable problems. The engine peiormance charccteistics of statianary diese! engine by using cocodiesel blended fuels are closed to those af petroleum diesel fuels. Hawever, the naxjnum brake horse pawer value of engine running on pure cocodiesel (81A0) is 10 670% lawer than that for petoleum diesel. It was alsa rcvealed lhat glaba y rcgulated emission: CO and HC values of engine running on cocodiesel blended fuels are noticeably lower than that for petroleun diesel. Related rcsults were also obsetued in the application af cocodiesel for agricultural tractor The tractive peiormances of tractor using cacodieael showed sinilar behaviou ta those of petrcleum diesel, however, it was revealed that the drawbat power becomes lowet with the increaae af cacadiesel camposition in the fuel.