Experimental Investigation Of Pure Reformed Methanol Gas Engine

In recent years, with the rapid increase of vehicle population,the environmental pollution problems and consequent shortage of oil resources have become increasingly prominent, it is urgent to find alternative fuels, methanol is one of the most realistic alternative fuel.Methanol can be produced from widely available fossil raw materials including coal, nature gas and seaweed. There are many advantages for liquid methanol which is used in internal combustion engine, such as its high thermal efficiency, less emissions of CO and NOx. But methanol’s corrosion on metal have seriously restricted the application of methanol fuel in internal combustion engine. This problems can be reduced by reforming methanol. Owing to the high economy and low emissions, reformed methanol gas (RMG) engine has caused more and more attention.Transformed the engine test bench, and developed a data acquisition system and a injection control system of methanol. Researched the RMG’s inlet mode and analyzed its influence on power, transient response, air-fuel ratio and inlet backfire. Developed a supply system for liquid methanol, which is used in the case of cold starting and transient conditions. The methanol engine could be easily-start under atmospheric temperature of1℃. This paper analyzed the performance of RMG engine through experiments, such as characteristics of the engine-reformer system, the RMG’s composition under different conditions, power, fuel economy, emissions, and combustion process in the cylinder etc.The test results show that the time when the engine-reformer worked depends on ambient temperature, and using methanol take longer time than using gasoline. The hydrogen volume concentration in RMG is between42%and46%. The RMG engine’s maximum pressure and rate of pressure rise in the cylinder are larger than gasoline engine, lead to the high fuel economy. The RMG engine’s power is larger than gasoline engine’s in small throttle opening, but it is smaller than the gasoline engine’s when the throttle opening is larger than67%. The RMG engine’s emissions of CO and NOx are far lower than gasoline engine’s, but the RMG engine’s emissions of HC are slightly larger than gasoline engine’s. In addition, the RMG engine has high formaldehyde emissions.