CNG-diesel engine performance and exhaust emission analysis with the aid of artificial neural network

This study investigates the use of artificial neural network (ANN) modelling to predict brake power, torque, break specific fuel consumption (BSFC), and exhaust emissions of a diesel engine modified to operate with a combination of both compressed natural gas CNG and diesel fuels. A single cylinder, four-stroke diesel engine was modified for the present work and was operated at different engine loads and speeds. The experimental results reveal that the mixtures of CNG and diesel fuel provided better engine performance and improved the emission characteristics compared with the pure diesel fuel. For the ANN modelling, the standard back-propagation algorithm was found to be the optimum choice for training the model. A multi-layer perception network was used for non-linear mapping between the input and output parameters. It was found that the ANN model is able to predict the engine performance and exhaust emissions with a correlation coefficient of 0.9884, 0.9838, 0.95707, and 0.9934 for the engine torque, BSFC, NOx and exhaust temperature, respectively. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.