The Effect of Running a Diesel Engine on Diesel Fuel and Natural Gas

Diesel engines offer many advantages over their gasoline counterparts. Typically, diesel engines offer greater thermal efficiency which leads to lower fuel consumption rates. One of the major disadvantages of diesel engines compared to gasoline engines is the amount of soot they produce. Natural gas on the other hand burns very cleanly and currently cost less than half the price of diesel fuel. In this experiment natural gas will be burned in combination with diesel fuel in a diesel engine. The purpose of this research is to determine the fuel cost savings associated with substituting large amounts of natural gas for diesel fuel. To determine this, the fuel consumption will be measured while the engine is running on just diesel. The test will be repeated with the engine running on diesel and natural gas. Using the fuel consumption results the cost of the each test will be calculated and the savings can be found. Thus far, the engine has been set up to run on both fuels. The preliminary tests have shown that around 40-50% of the diesel fuel can be replaced by natural gas. At this time it is too early to make any conclusions about the total amount of natural gas which can be substituted for diesel fuel or the fuel savings