Ignition delay characteristics of some Turkish vegetable oil-diesel fuel blends

Vegetable oils have chances to be used in Diesel engines as alternative fuels contributing to the solution of some agricultural, environmental and economical problems. Direct use of them has some technical problem yet but as blended fuels with diesel fuel or esters they have places or the application area. In this paper the effect of the compression ratio on ignition delay is investigated in an ASTM-CFR engine working with four different types of vegetable oil of Turkish origin (sunflower, corn, soybean, and olive oil) blended with grade No.2-D diesel fuel at a ratio of 20/80 (v/v) and the results are compared with baseline diesel fuel. Longer ignition delay periods have generally been obtained for blend fuels ranking from olive oil to sunflower oil as compared to diesel fuel.