Determination of the optimal amount of nitrous oxide injected into the engine in order to reduce emissions

Abstract

Introduction: Nowadays the number of motor vehicles in large and small cities is growing. Increasing the number of motor vehicles leads to serious increase of the amount of environmental pollution and daily fuel consumption. Motor vehicle emissions that are known as the most air polluting emissions cause 50-90 percent of air pollution. With large increasd in the number of motor vehicles and their emissions todays, many researchers have investigated engine optimization in order to reduce emissions of motor vehicles. But due to the lack of affordable changes in the physical structure of the engine, it is not possible to create major changes in the amount of engine exhaust. Hence, in order to improve engine performance and reduce emissions, a lot of research has been carried out on changes in the fuel and engine inlet air. So, in this study a new method has been proposed and tested in order to detect changes in the charactristics of emissions. So, the effects of enriched nitrous oxide gas on the exhaust emissions of a spark-injection engine were investigated. In this way, a certain amount of Nitrous Oxide (N2O) gas was mixed with the engine inlet air (with concentration of 0, 4, 8, 12 and 16 percent) and it was injected to the engine. Then its effect was studied on emission parameters at various engine rotational speeds. Then, by using genetic algorithm, the optimal values of N2O concentration and engine rotational speed were determined to reach the minimum emission parameters. Materials and Methods: To measure the engine emission parameters including CO, CO2, HC and NOx, the expriments were conducted after preparing a system to inject inlet air with different percentages of N2O into an Otto engine (model: M13NI). In this study, the randomized complete block design was used to investigate the effect of N2O concentration (five levels) and engine rotational speed (three levels) on exhauste emission parameters. Each expriment was replicated 9 times. For statistical analysis, Duncan’s multiple range test and multivariate analysis of variance were performed by using SPSS Software. Also, each factor was modeled by polynomial equations and the obtained models were optimized in three dimensions by genetic algorithm method in MATLAB Software. After optimization ofeach emission parameter in the same time by multi-objective optimization regression, separately, and determination of the best value of N2O concentration in the inlet air andthe engine rotational speed, the optimizations were compared in order to obtain the minimum value of emission parameters. Results and discussion: The experimental results indicated that by increasing N2O concentration in the inlet air of motor vehicle engine, the amounts of CO and HC were significantly decreased and the amounts of CO2 and NOx were significantly increased. Also, the results of this study showed that increasing the engine rotational speed at the same time with increasing the N2O concentration caused a significant decrease in the amounts of CO, CO2, HC and NOx. The optimal amount of N2O concentration and engine rotational speed by genetic algorithm method were obtained to be14.545 % and 3184 rpm, respectively. Conclusions: The main conclusions obtained from this research are listed below: - The amount of N2O concentration in the engine fuelis the decisive factor for decreasing emissions. - By increasing N2O concentration in the inlet air of motor vehicle engine, the amounts of CO and HC were significantly decreased and the amounts of CO2 and NOx were significantly increased. - By increasing the engine rotational speed and N2O concentration, the amounts of CO, CO2, HC and NOx were decreased. - The optimal amount of N2O concentration and engine rotational speed were obtained to be 14.545 % and 3184 rpm, respectivelyby using the genetic algorithm method. For these values, based on regression models, concentration of CO and CO2, were obtained to be 0.056% and 12.5%, respectively. - The concentration of N2O and the optimum rotational speed of engine for CO gas were obtained to be 10.562% and 3749 rpm. - The concentration of N2O and the optimum rotational speed of the engine for CO2 gas were found to be 0% and 2847 rpm, respectively. - The concentration of N2O and optimum rotational speed of engine for HC werefound to be 12.71% and 3750 rpm, respectively. - The concentration of N2O and optimum rotational speed of engine for NOx werefound to be 0% and 4300 rpm, respectively