Performance evaluation of four-wheel driving wheel tractor with diesel engine using biodiesel fuel

The Indonesian government is committed to increasing biodiesel usage as renewable energy by 23 of national energy consumption by 2025. Implementing the mandatory biodiesel program must be carried out sustainably to help reduce fossil energy consumption, reduce air pollution, and reduce the effect of greenhouse gases. The Ministry of Agriculture studied applying biodiesel from palm oil in agricultural machinery, especially four-wheeled tractors, to help implement agricultural mechanization in Indonesia. The research objective was to determine the effect of biodiesel on the performance of a four-wheeled tractor engine in several variations of the mixture to obtain the composition of biodiesel mixture that gave optimal engine performance. The experiment was conducted by testing the performance of a four-wheeled tractor engine on a laboratory scale referring to SNI 7146-2019, using biodiesel fuel with a mixture of B10 to B100 variations. The result showed that biodiesel affects the performance of a four-wheeled tractor engine. The efficiency of continuing engine power using biodiesel was the largest at B20 of 80.15 at the maximum governor and 80.97 at the standard PTO rotation of 540 rpm. The smallest power forwarding efficiency on the B100 was 76.12 at the maximum governor and 76.55 at 540 rpm PTO rotation. Biodiesel B20 provided the greatest maximum power of 23.55 kW, 44 kgf of torque, specific fuel consumption of 250.54 g/kW hours. At 540 rpm, PTO rotation produced a maximum power of 23.79 kW, 42 kgf of torque, the specific fuel consumption of 256.12 g/kW hours. © 2022 Institute of Physics Publishing. All rights reserved