Analysis Using TAGUCHI Method For the Optimum Ethanol-Gasoline Fuel in Small Engine

Abstract

This paper outlines the Taguchi optimization methodology, which to applied optimize ethanol-gasoline fuel in small engine running on 4th gear of transmission, the effect of unleaded gasoline blended with 10%, 30% and 50% of ethanol on the performance of a spark-ignition engine were experimentally investigated. The parameters evaluated are % of ethanol mixture, engine speed and load. An orthogonal array, signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio is employed to analyze the effect of this engine performance. The analysis of the result shows that the optimal combination for low mixture ethanol blend, high engine speed and lowest load will lead to the highest output of torque and the medium contents ethanol which 30% ethanol, low speed and high load lead to the lowest specific fuel consumption (SFC) of time rate. The study shows that the Taguchi method is suitable to solve the stated problem with minimum number of trials as compared with a full factorial design.