ANALYSIS OF EXHAUST GAS EMISSIONS AND PERFORMANCE PARAMETERS ON NON- ROAD SPARK IGNITION ENGINES

Abstract

Air pollution continues to be a serious threat to the health and well-being of the population. Worldwide, tens of millions of spark ignition (S.I) engines are used for non-road applications such as electric generators, compressors, pumps hand held and non-hand held devices. This work investigated the effects of equivalence ratio, engine speed and engine load on exhaust gas emissions and performance parameters of non-road spark ignition engines. Three input parameters which are engine design/operating parameters and eight output parameters which are exhaust gas emissions and performance parameters were considered in this work. The effect of variation in the input parameters on the output parameters were simulated using software implemented in MATLAB 7.9 neural network toolbox environment developed by the authors. The results show that engine speed of 3000rpm gave the maximum values for several parameters considered. The results also show that exhaust gas emission and several performance parameters increased with increased in engine load. Equivalence ratio of 0.9 gave the least values for exhaust gas emission and specific fuel consumption. It can be concluded that for low exhaust gas emission and improved performance, non-road S.I engines should be operated at low engine loads engine speed of about 3000rpm and equivalence ratio of between 0.9 and 1.0