Experimental and Performance Study of Diesel Engine Using Inlet Preheated Air by Heat Pipe Heat Exchanger

The utilization of waste exhaust heat energy into inlet preheated air is investigated using heat pipe heat exchanger. This study focuses on waste heat energy, which comes out as exhaust from standalone diesel engine is around 60–70%, this energy is converted into preheated air and supplied as inlet air for the engine using heat pipe with DI water as working fluid. This preheated air makes improvement in efficiency of the engine and is economically effective in all conditions. In this study, the effect of specific fuel consumption (SFC), brake thermal efficiency (BTE), smoke intensity, oxides of nitrogen (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), and hydrocarbon (HC) emissions is reported for various loads ranging from no load to loaded (0–90%). The results are compared with and without heat pipe conditions and performance is analyzed. The study warranted that at 38 °C as input temperature and 50% load condition, the better performance is achieved for SFC as 0.23 kg/kW h and 37% for BTE. The observation reports as influence of heat pipe for utilizing the waste exhaust heat makes improved in the performance of the engine.