Prediction of performance and exhaust emissions of a diesel engine fueled with biodiesel produced from waste frying palm oil

Biodiesel is receiving increasing attention each passing day because of its fuel properties and compatibility with the petroleum-based diesel fuel (PBDF). Therefore, in this study, the prediction of the engine performance and exhaust emissions is carried out for five different neural networks to define how the inputs affect the outputs using the biodiesel blends produced from waste frying palm oil. PBDF, B100, and biodiesel blends with PBDF, which are 50% (B50), 20% (B20) and 5% (B5), were used to measure the engine performance and exhaust emissions for different engine speeds at full load conditions. Using the artificial neural network (ANN) model, the performance and exhaust emissions of a diesel engine have been predicted for biodiesel blends. According to the results, the fifth network is sufficient for all the outputs. In the fifth network, fuel properties, engine speed, and environmental conditions are taken as the input parameters, while the values of flow rates, maximum injection pressure, emissions, engine load, maximum cylinder gas pressure, and thermal efficiency are used as the output parameters. For all the networks, the learning algorithm called back-propagation was applied for a single hidden layer. Scaled conjugate gradient (SCG) and Levenberg–Marquardt (LM) have been used for the variants of the algorithm, and the formulations for outputs obtained from the weights are given in this study. The fifth network has produced R values of 0.99, and the mean % errors are smaller than five except for some emissions. Higher mean errors are obtained for the emissions such as CO, NOx and UHC. The complexity of the burning process and the measurement errors in the experimental study can cause higher mean errors. 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.