Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 28 (2016) 15e30

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jngse

An experimental based ANN approach in mapping performanceemission characteristics of a diesel engine operating in dual-fuel mode
with LPG
Amitav Chakraborty, Sumit Roy*, Rahul Banerjee
Department of Mechanical Engineering, NIT, Agartala, Tripura, India

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 19 May 2015
Received in revised form
19 October 2015
Accepted 12 November 2015
Available online 18 November 2015

The present study tries to harness the synergistic exploits of diesel-LPG dual fuel platform coupled with
articial neural network for addressing the environmental intimidation due to pollution, rigorous
emission legislatives and the future energy insecurity. The dual fuel operation resulted in higher brake
thermal efciency at high load, and injection duration, which recorded a maximum rise of 11% compared
to base line operation. At 25%, 50% and 75% load and optimal dual fuel operation with injection duration
of 15,000 ms registered a 52%, 29% and 13% higher BSFC compared to base line diesel operation similar to
BSEC. Also higher rates of LPG energy share can be observed with highest injection duration of 15,000 ms.
A lower emission rate of 45%, 65%, 27% NOx and Soot is also registered in dual fuel platform with injection duration of 15,000 ms with the penalty of higher HC and CO emission. An ANN model was
developed to predict BSFC, BTE, NOx, PM, HC and CO based on the experimental results, with load and
injection duration as input parameters for the network. The developed ANN model was capable of
predicting the performance and emission parameters with commendable accuracy and resulted in
relative values of (R2), RMSE and MAPE of 0.99878, 0.020254 & 4.02% for BSFC, 0.99999, 0.61806 and
0.331536% for NOx 0.991299, 0.013617 & 4.31% for CO 0.99999, 1.24 & 0.443% for HC and nally 0.99918,
0.37011 & 1.71% for Soot.
2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Dual-fuel
LPG
Diesel
ANN
Soot
NOx

1. Introduction
The efciency of diesel engines in transportation domain is well
established (Elnajjar et al., 2013; Shi and Reitz, 2010; Saravanan
et al., 2010). However due to the tougher emission perspective
and future energy insecurity issues the existing dominancy of
diesel engines is at stake (Salman et al., 2004; Roy et al., 2014a,
2014b). On contrasting the present day threats faced by depletion
of conventional fossil fuels and an alarming rise in the levels of
pollution certainly destabilizes the foundation of existence of the
future energy system. Alternative fuel denitely is a forerunner in

Abbreviations: ANN, Articial neural network; BP, Brake power; BSFC, Brake
specic fuel consumption; BTDC, Before top dead centre; BTE, Brake thermal efciency; CI, Compression ignition; DI, Direct injection; HC, Hydro carbon; IC, Internal
combustion; LPG, Liquid petroleum gas; MAPE, Mean absolute percentage error;
MSE, Mean square error; NOx, Oxides of nitrogen; PM, Particulate matter; ppm,
Parts Per Million; R, Correlation coefcient; RMSE, Root mean square error.
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: sumitroy@hotmail.de (S. Roy).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jngse.2015.11.024
1875-5100/ 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

mitigating the present day energy threats and providing a solution

for the future. The concept of Alternative fuel technology for
reducing the emission prole by transguring the conventional
diesel engine to run on a dual fuel platform with another gaseous
fuel is well established (Selim et al., 2008; Miller Jothi et al., 2007; Li
and Yao, 2008; Poonia et al., 1999; Jian et al., 2001). LPG with its
innate amalgamation of its surplus availability, cleaner burning
characteristics, and higher future energy security index (Saleh,
2008; Beroun and Martins, 2001; Johnson, 2003) coupled with its
potential of plummeting regulated emission imprint of I.C. engine
domain (Saleh, 2008; Chen et al., 2001; Liu and Karim, 1997; Barata,
1995; Ayhan et al., 2011), hallmarks itself as a dominating and
persuasive alternative fuel. Also to this end the fact which stands
out clear is such a kind of present need and future demand
circumstance which certainly dictates an extraordinary increase in
the levels of dependence on the control of several new variables
which would denitely be called into simultaneously. Moreover
due to increasing number of input parameters lack of linear relationship between input and output variables and an extensive
experimental load on the dynamometer it stands out to be almost

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unachievable for conventional modeling techniques to determine

the optimum range of design values with high conformity. To
address such a kind of issue Articial Intelligence (AI) based
modeling paradigm have past record of upheld success (Isermann
et al., 1998; Shayler et al., 2000) to serve as a robust system identication tool having the inherent capacity of predicting the
performance-emission prole of IC engines with high delity. AI
based engine control unfolds a vast scope of developing multidimensional models of a system with the extended exibility for
accommodating nonlinear and noisy data. This in turn inspires a
step advanced towards the on-board system parameter control

uz et al., 2010), especially
management (Ghobadian et al., 2009; Og
suited to the complexities of diesel-dual fuel paradigms. The present study stands to explore the performance-emission characteristics of a diesel-LPG dual fuel platform and subsequently engage in
developing a holistic ANN model to map the performance-emission
trade-off footprint in particular in the effort of establishing a robust
system identication tool that can be suitably exploited in its
control paradigm.
1.1. Motivation of the present study
On juxtaposing the ever swelling demand for fossil fuel and
arduous emission norms the viable option for sustaining the future
energy reserve and meeting the emission legislations is by the use
of alternative source of energy. Due to established inherent benets
of gaseous alternative fuels (Selim et al., 2008; Miller Jothi et al.,
2007; Li and Yao, 2008; Poonia et al., 1999; Jian et al., 2001) as
discussed earlier they stand out as a viable option in meeting the
present day emission legislations and future energy insecurity
issue. Presently an ingenious effort is dedicated for exploiting the
inherent benets of gaseous alternative fuel in mapping the efcacy of LPG in the performance-emission trade-off contingencies of
an existing diesel engine. Subsequent experimental study and data
analysis revealed a marked sensitivity of the performance and
emission indices with the chosen input parameters. Such dependency obligated the necessity to explore a suitable system
identication platform to identify and map the variance of the
chosen performance and emission parameters consequent to the
changes of the input parameters of the study which would then
provide an added advantage in the control paradigm of the complexities of the dual fuel operation to extract the maximum
performance-emission trade-off advantage. Such SIT tools would
also serve as a unique option in the prediction domains for adjudicating the performance-emission trade off characteristics in real
time on board systems.
To this end, literature survey reveals the contextual signicance
of deploying AI based ANN platforms as a credible and robust
system identication tool to model the performance emission
characteristics of the intended dual fuel operation. Though the
proliferation of ANN paradigms in various facets of the IC engine
realms have been extensive, there is, but only sparse literature in
the establishment of such intended ANN based system identication platforms in the realm of diesel-LPG dual fuel platforms.
Furthermore, studies pertaining to the development of ANN SIT
platforms in the diesel-LPG dual fuel domain present only the
possibility of perusing such motivation without a recourse in
transacting its efcacy and robustness in the performanceemission trade-off impasse evident in the conventional operation
of an existing diesel engine. To this end, the present study envisages
a denite objective to explore the possibilities of developing an
ANN model to encapsulate the performance and emission characteristics with due attention to robustness through necessary statistical error metrics which have received little or no attention in
previous diesel-LPG ANN case studies to this effect.

2. Experimental investigation
2.1. Experimental setup
To detail the experimental setup consisted of a control panel for
monitoring the engine loading, temperature at various input and
output points, and the fuel consumption parameters. The engine is
loaded with an air cooled electrical resistance dynamometer. The
fuel tank for providing continuous fuel supply to the engine was
tted with control panel. A burette and a fuel sensor with the fuel
circuit to measure the fuel consumption formed the integral part
the control panel and provided input to the computer through data
acquisition system. A pressure transducer (Kistler) was mounted on
the engine head to measure the cylinder pressure variations with
load. A crank angle encoder was connected to the output shaft to
record the crank angle and feed the same to data acquisition system. All the combustion parameters such as the peak pressure, time
of occurrence of peak pressure, heat release rate and ignition delay
were obtained with the help of software provided by supplier. Atmospheric air enters the intake manifold of the engine through an
air lter and an air box so as to provide surge free air supply to the
engine. An air ow sensor is tted with the air box for recording the
inlet air consumption of the engine. For measurement of the temperature of exhaust gases a thermocouple in conjunction with a
temperature indicator was connected to the exhaust pipe. For
measurement of gaseous emissions and soot an AVL DiGas 444
emission analyzer and an AVL 415S exhaust gas analyzer was used.
The LPG was inducted to the engine through the inlet manifold
with the help of LPG injector and a continuous supply of LPG is
provided from a domestic LPG cylinder through the LPG manifold
injection kit. A schematic diagram of the experimental setup is
detailed in Fig. 6.
2.2. Methodology
The present experiment was conducted on an existing watercooled, single-cylinder, four-stroke direct injection diesel engine
(Fig. 1) as detailed in Table 1. The engine is coupled to an air-cooled
eddy current dynamometer of Power Mag make. The LPG was
stored in a 14.2 Kg domestic LPG cylinder compressed at 6e7 Kg/
Cm2 Table and was routed to the Kirloskar (SUPER JIGAR) make AV-1
single cylinder four stroke diesel engine through the inlet manifold
from a LPG manifold induction kit (Fig. 2) detailed in Table 2. An
open loop Electronic Control Unit (OPECU) was provided with the
LPG manifold injection kit to decide the injection start angle and

Fig. 1. Photographic view of Test Engine.

A. Chakraborty et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 28 (2016) 15e30

17

Fig. 4. Photographic view of AVL Di-Gas 444.

Fig. 2. Photographic view of LPG manifold injection kit.

Fig. 5. Photographic view of AVL 415S smoke meter.

Fig. 3. Photographic view of LPG Injector rail.

the induction duration. Technical Specication of LPG Injector Rail

(Fig. 3) is given in Table 3. All the test runs were performed in
normal atmospheric conditions without any modication on the
engine setup. The series of tests were conducted on the engine by
varying the load from 0 Kg, 2.5 Kg, 5 Kg, 7.5 Kg and 10 Kg.The injection duration of LPG was varied in ve steps ranging from
5000 mS to 15000 mS. At all the test cases the corresponding readings of fuel consumption, rpm, load and temperature were noted
from the control panel of the engine setup. Exhaust gases were

sampled online by AVL Digas 444 (Fig. 4) & (Table 4) emission

analyzer and an AVL 415S smoke meter (Fig. 5) & (Table 5) was used
to measure the soot content, present in the exhaust. Initially the
engine was run with pure diesel with no load it is held there for
some time to warm up and gain stability. Then the speed, fuel
consumption and temperature was recorded from the engine
control panel display. The emission characteristics were recorded
online from AVL Di-gas 444 emission analyzer and AVL 415S smoke
meter. After recording all the parameters the same test procedure
was performed for 2.5 kg, 5 kg, 7.5 kg and 10 kg load conditions.
After concluding all the test run with base diesel fuel, the load on
the engine was decreased gradually to no load condition (See
Tables 6e7).

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Fig. 6. Schematic view of the experimental setup.

Table 1
Specication of test Engine.
Make/Model
Type
No. of cylinders
Bore
Stroke
Cubic Capacity
Compression Ratio
Cooling system
Inlet Valve Opening
Inlet Valve Closing
Exhaust Valve opening
Exhaust Valve closing

Kirloskar oil engines/Super Jigar AV-1,Vertical

Naturally aspirated four stroke compression ignition DI
One
80 mm
110 mm
0.553 lit
16.5: 1
Water cooled
4.50 before TDC
35.50 after BDC
35.50 before BBD
4.50 after TDC

Table 2
Technical details of LPG Manifold Injection Kit.
Entry pipe tting
LPG Filter
Solenoid Valve
Reducer heating
system
Reducer 1
Stage
Outlet tting
Outlet pressure
regulation
Pressure relief valve
Injector
Crank Angle Sensor
ECU
Fuel Measurement
Weight
Max. inlet pressure
Outlet pressure
Solenoid voltage
Solenoid power
dissipation

Fitting for copper pipe carrying LPG from tank

Component used to clean the LPG coming from tank
Normally closed, has the function to intercept and stop the LPG ow when the engine is not running or powered by petrol.
To prevent the freezing of the LPG, a heating chamber, obtained on the reducer body, is connected to the engine water cooling circuit by two
orientable ttings. The warm uid laps base and walls of the chamber, heating them.
Chamber that allow a reduction of pressure of the LPG
Fitting for copper pipe at the outlet of the reducer, to the engine
Allows a manual regulation of the outlet pressure in order to meet the requirement of the different automotive engines.
Valve with a retaining spring that allows the relief of the LPG in vapor phase from the reducer, in case of overpressure.
12 V
Standard
Electronic Control Unit with adjustable start of injection and injection Duration
Load cell with Indicator
~55 kg (without accessories)
3 MPa
Variable from 90 to 180) KPa (when tested non connected to the engine)
12 V dc
11 W

A. Chakraborty et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 28 (2016) 15e30
Table 3
Specication of LPG Injector rail.

Table 6
Experimental readings for NOx emission.

Make
Type
Working Pressure
Maximum Pressure
Supply Voltage
Inlet Gas ttings
Outlet Gas ttings
Temp. range
Resistance
Minimum injection pulse
Opening
Closing

IG3 Horizon Rail

E8
0.5e2 bar
4.5 bar
10.8e14.4 V
F 12 mm
calibrated nozzles M8x1
20
Ce120
C
2.8 Ohm
2.8 ms
2.5 ms
2 ms

Table 4
Specication of AVL Di-Gas 444 analyzer.
Make
Type
Power supply
Warm up time
Connector gas in
Response time
Operating temperature
Storage temperature
Relative humidity
Inclination:
Dimension (w  d  h)
Weight
Interfaces

19

AVL
AVL Di-Gas 444
11.2 voltage 25 W
z7 min.
180 I/h, max. overpressure 450 hPa
T95 15s
5e45
C
0 to 50
C
95%, non-condensing
0 - 90
270 mm  320 mm  85 mm
4.5 kg net weight without accessories
RS 232C, Pick up, Oil temperature probe.

In the next phase of study test runs were performed by routing

LPG into the engine, for that initially the engine was run in base
diesel at no load condition. Once the engine attained stability, LPG
supply was turned ON and the injection duration of LPG is
controlled by the LPG injector driver coupled with the engine.
Initially the injection duration was started from 5000 mS at no load
condition and the same test procedure as the neat diesel was
adopted. After that the injection duration of LPG was varied in steps
of 2500 up to 15000 mS and the same procedure as the initial was
repeated.

Observation no. ni

Sampling time (Sec)

Observed Values (x)

1
2
3
4
5
6

20
20
20
20
20
20

183
182
180
180
185
182

Table 7
Average standard deviation & average TSU values.
Sampled emission

Average TSU (%)

Average std. deviation

NOx
Soot
TUHC

9.01
0.63
0.205

2.03
4.65
4.42

3. Experimental results & discussion

3.1. Performance parameters
3.1.1. Brake thermal efciency (BTE)
Brake thermal efciency may be dened as the ratio of output
brake power (BP) of an engine to the input power of the engine.
As summarized by Fig. 7 it is evident that the BTE in dual fuel
operation depicted a decreasing trend with each injection duration
at lower loads, compared to neat diesel operation. Also the minimum BTE recorded for neat diesel at 25% load and the maximum
value peaked at full load range. However above 50% load the BTE of
dual fuel operation rises higher compared to base diesel with injection duration of 5000 ms. While on crossing 80% load the BTE of
dual fuel exceeds the base diesel BTE with injection duration of
7500 ms. Similar trend was noticed with 85% load 90% load and 95%
load with injection durations of 10,000, 12,500 and 15,000 ms. The
maximum BTE recorded was with injection duration of 10,000 ms
and at full load which is 11% higher compared to neat diesel.
Whereas the minimum BTE was noted at 25% load with injection
duration of 15,000 ms. Finally it can be suggested that brake thermal
efciency for dual fuel operation is lower compared to base line

Table 5
Specication of AVL 415S Smoke meter.
Measurement principle
Measured value output
Measurement range
Detection limit
Resolution
Exhaust pressure ranges

Maximum exhaust temperature

Interfaces

Power supply
Power consumption
Compressed air (for compressed air option)
Compressed air quality required
Weight
Dimensions (w  h  d)
Sample ow
Ambient conditions
Repeatability

Measurement of lter paper blackening

FSN (lter smoke number) or mg/m3 (soot concentration)
0 to 10 FSN
0.002 FSN or ~ 0.02 mg/m3
0.001 FSN or 0.01 mg/m3
(300*) 100 to 400 mbars
(500*) 200 to 750 mbars with the special sampling option
0 to 3000 mbars with the high-pressure option
(*) with activated altitude simulation
600
C with standard 340 mm sample probe (800
C with 780 mm long sample probe)
2 serial RS232 interfaces with AK protocol
Digital via Instrument Controller 4210
1 Ethernet interface with In Port option installed with AK protocol
100e115 VAC or 230 VAC, 50/60 Hz
700 VA
~150 l/min during purge
Grades 1.1.1 to 1.4.1 according to ISO 8573.1:2001(E)
Recommended connection pressure on the AVL Smoke Meter: 5e8 bars at the measurement device input
<40 kg
560  620  300 mm
~10 l/min
5 to 55
C/max.95 RH; without condensation Sea level 500 to 5000 m
Standard deviation 1 s (0.005 FSN 3% of the measured value @ 10sec intake time)

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Fig. 7. Relation between Load and Brake thermal efciency.

diesel at lower loads however it rises with increase in load

compared to neat diesel.
3.1.2. Brake specic fuel consumption equivalent BSFC(EQ)
As evident from Fig. 8, there is an increasing trend of BSFC(EQ) for
all the LPG injection duration scenarios compared to that of pure
diesel operation. It is also found that the highest BSFC(EQ) rate
occurred with injection duration of 15,000 ms at 25% load, which is
around 56% higher compared to neat diesel operation. A decrease in
the BSFC(EQ) for all the injection durations can be noted after 25%
load range. The lowest BSFC(EQ) was recorded at an injection
duration of 10,000 ms with full load operation which is almost 11.4%
lower compared to base diesel operation. So it is noticed here that
compared to base line diesel the equivalent brake specic fuel
consumption was higher for dual fuel operation.
3.1.3. Brake specic energy consumption (BSEC)
BSEC reects the capacity of an engine to effectively harness the
input energy content of the fuel which is being used for the combustion purpose.
Study of Fig. 9 summarizing BSEC-load characteristics with
various LPG induction strategies reveals that there is an increasing
trend of energy consumption for all the LPG injection duration
scenarios compared to the consumption rate of pure diesel
operation.
It is also found that the highest energy consumption rate
occurred with injection duration of 15,000 ms at 25% load, which is
around 56% higher compared to neat diesel operation. A decrease in

the energy consumption for all the injection durations can be noted
after 25% load range. The lowest energy consumption was recorded
at an injection duration of 10,000 ms with full load operation which
is almost 11.4% lower compared to base diesel operation. So it can
be penned down here that compared to base line diesel the brake
specic energy consumption was higher for dual fuel operation in
line with equivalent brake specic fuel consumption.
3.1.4. Gas air equivalence ratio (LPG)
The Gas air equivalence ratio (LPG) can be dened as the ratio of
stoichiometric mass of air required for the combustion of gas alone
to the difference between the total air mass and the mass required
for complete combustion of pilot diesel fuel. By judging this ratio
the actual propensity of any gas for taking part in combustion reaction can be investigated.
As summarized in Fig. 10 it can be observed that initially with all
the injection durations the (LPG) increased, and this rate of increase varied directly with injection durations. Particularly for the
injection durations of 12,500 and 15,000 ms the rate increase is
pronounced more clearly compared to the other lower injection
durations of 10,000, 7500 and 5000 ms. Also the maximum (LPG) is
recorded with highest injection duration of 15,000 ms at 25% load
and the minimum (LPG) is found with lowest injection duration at
25% load. It is also noticed from the Figure that with highest injection duration of 15,000 ms the (LPG) increased up to 25% load
beyond that there is dipping trend in the (LPG) and ultimately this
trend goes out on at rate indicating a minimum change in the
(LPG). Hence from here it can be summarized that by increasing

Fig. 8. Relation between Load and Brake specic fuel consumption.

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21

Fig. 9. Relation between Load and Brake specic energy consumption.

the injection duration the amount of (LPG) can be increased which

in turn is related with the amount of LPG share but beyond a certain
range of injection duration there is no signicant rise in the (LPG).

3.1.5. Total fuel-air equivalence ratio (T)

The Total fuel air equivalence ratio (T) is dened as the ratio of
the stoichiometric amount of air required both for combustion of
gas and pilot diesel fuel to the mass of actual amount of air
consumed by the engine.
Interpretation of Fig. 11 suggests that the (T) has an
increasing trend with LPG induction compared to the base line
diesel operation. This trend can be observed up to 50% load
approximately after which a dipping characteristics is found with
the injection duration of 5000 ms and this trend followed gradually as the load increased with other higher injection durations.
However at full load the base diesel recorded a highest (T)
compared to all the other LPG injection durations and the lowest
(T) is found with an injection duration of 10,000 ms which is
approximately 24% lower compared to base line diesel. As a
higher (T) value indicates about rich combustion or excess
amount of fuel present compared to air so from here it can be
observed that with LPG induction a lean combustion reign prevails up to certain amount of load which advantageous for
emission reduction in dual fuel platform.

3.1.6. Comparison of (LPG) and actual equivalence ratio with LPG

share
On comparison of the two Figs. 12 and 13 it is evident that incase
of (LPG) and actual equivalence ratio the (LPG) increased with
increase of actual equivalence ratio gradually with higher injection
durations. When the comparison is done in between the lowest and
highest injection duration then it is observed that compared to the
lowest injection duration (5000 ms) the highest injection duration
(15,000 ms) produced profound higher rate of increase of (LPG) at
each load. As (LPG) reects the tendency of LPG to participate in
the combustion reaction the same trend can be observed when
Fig. 12 is studied, which reveals relation between percentages of
LPG shared with load at various injection durations. This swelling
trend can be observed till 75% load after which both the
Figures revealed a tumbling trend for (LPG) and LPG % share. It
denitely point towards the afnity of LPG towards combustion
reaction in dual fuel platform with diesel. But this afnity continues
up till a certain range of load beyond which there is no further
promising characteristics, which in turn puts down the idea of
increasing the injection duration further higher.
3.2. Emission parameters
3.2.1. Oxides of Nitrogen (NOX)
As depicted from Fig. 14 it is evident that the NOX emission
shows a reducing trend with all the LPG injection duration scenarios at all the lower load cases compared to base diesel operation.

Fig. 10. Comparison of gas air eq. ratio at different loads.

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Fig. 11. Comparison of total fuel-air eq. ratios at different loads.

Fig. 12. Comparison of (LPG) & Actual EQ. at different loads.

Fig. 13. Comparison of LPG share at different loads.

However at around 82% load the NOx emission level of 5000 ms

injection duration rises higher than that of base diesel. Also one
more increasing NOX level was noticed at approximately 95% load
with injection duration of 7500 ms. The maximum NOX emission
with base diesel was recorded at full load condition, whereas at this
load the lowest NOX emission was found with 15,000 ms injection
duration which is about 45% lower compared to base diesel

operation. In contrast to that the minimum NOX emission was

recorded with 12,500 ms injection duration at 25% load which is
almost 77% lower compared to base diesel at the same load. Finally
the maximum NOX emission was noted for 5000 ms injection
duration at full load which about 26% higher compared to base
diesel operation at the same load. In a nut shell it can be clearly
proposed that by injecting LPG with diesel commendable reduction

A. Chakraborty et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 28 (2016) 15e30

in emission of NOX can be achieved at low to semi higher load

ranges compared to base line diesel operation. The main reason for
lower NOX production can be attributed to the low cylinder temperature and also the absence of excess oxygen which has been
replaced by LPG.

3.2.2. Hydro carbon (HC)

Inspection of Fig. 15 reveals the HC-load characteristics of the
entire experimental domain. It clearly shows that there is an
increasing trend of HC emission with all the LPG injection duration scenarios compared to base diesel operation. Particularly with
the injection durations of 15,000, 12,500 and 10,000 ms the HC
emission showed a increasing trend up to 25% load compared to
no load condition, after which the emission curve dipped gradually with increasing load. Whereas in case of 5000 and 7500 ms
injection duration the HC emission level was lower compared to
other higher injection durations. The lowest HC emission with LPG
induction was recorded with 5000 ms at full load. The probable
reason for the higher emission of HC compared to base diesel,
being the lower temperature prevailing in the combustion
chamber which restricts the complete combustion of diesel-LPG
mixture. Also the higher LPG utilization at lower loads causes a
prolonged ignition delay. To conclude it can be summarized that
in dual fuel operation the hydro carbon emission always soars
high at each load and injection duration compared to neat diesel
operation.

3.2.3. Carbon monoxide (CO)

Analysis of Fig. 16 representing CO-load characteristics exhibits
that there is no certain common trend for all the injection durations. However the injection duration curves of 5000, 7500 and
10,000 ms reects an increasing trend of CO particularly at low load
ranges. Whereas the injection duration curves of 12,500 and
15,000 ms showed a deceasing trend of CO emission. Also it is
clearly understood from the Figure that the lowest CO emission
recorded was with base diesel operation and the maximum was
noted with injection duration of 7500 ms at 25% load. In case of base
diesel operation the maximum CO level was recorded at no load
condition and the minimum CO was found at 75% load range.
However with injection duration of 15,000 ms minimum CO was
noted at 25% load which is about 12% lower compared to pure
diesel operation. Finally to end up the idea that can be put forward
is that CO emission is though higher in dual fuel platform, but at
some higher injection durations lower emission levels can be
achieved.

23

3.2.4. SOOT
By analyzing the Fig. 17 depicting Soot-load characteristics no
persistent trend could be recorded. However the maximum soot in
neat diesel operation was recorded at full load case, and there is
substantial increase in soot emission levels with the injection durations of 12,500 and 15,000 ms.
And all the other injection durations recorded lower value of
soot compared to base diesel operation. The maximum soot emission was recorded with the injection duration of 15,000 ms, which is
about 7.3% higher compared to neat diesel operation. The minimum
soot was found with injection duration of 7500 ms which is about
57% lower than that of the base diesel value at 25% load. So in a nut
shell it can be suggested that by inducting LPG with lower injection
duration soot emission level can be reduced compared to base line
diesel in dual fuel operation.
3.2.5. Carbon dioxide (CO2)
On examining the Fig. 18 summarizing CO2-Load behavior it can
be adjudged that the CO2 emission level reects an increasing trend
for every LPG injection duration cases. However this trend reduced
after 75% load range. Also it can be found that the minimum CO2
emission level occurred with base diesel operation. On reaching full
load operation the minimum CO2 emission was recorded with an
injection duration of 15,000 ms which is approximately 1.5% lower
than the emission level obtained with base diesel operation. Finally
the maximum CO2 emission was found with 5000 ms injection
duration at full load range.
4. Articial neural network modeling
On subsequent analysis of the experimental results it can be
concluded that there was signicance variation in the performance
parameters of BSFC(EQ) and that of the emission parameters of NOX,
HC, PM, SOOT and CO, corresponding to the variation of LPG ow
rate and load. This sets itself a challenge to suitably establish a
robust and credible system identication tool to embody the performance and emission characteristics of a LPG-Diesel dual fuel
operation simultaneously on a meta-modeling platform. Though
such variations can be studied with great delity as per computational uid domains, the exorbitant computational cost involved
deters such an endeavor. Keeping in view the observed exploits of
metamodeling strategies in other branches of engineering it provides a credible yet computationally economic endeavor to capture
the underling physical multi physics relationships between the
chosen input variables of load and LPG injection duration and the
performance and the emission criteria under study. To this end an

Fig. 14. Relation between Load and Nitrogen dioxide (NOX) emission.

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A. Chakraborty et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 28 (2016) 15e30

Fig. 15. Relation between Load and Hydro carbon (HC) emission.

Fig. 16. Relation between Load and Carbon monoxide (CO) emission.

Fig. 17. Relation between Load and Soot emission.

ANN based metamodeling strategy has been developed to establish

a suitable system identication tool in the present study.
In a lucid manner Articial Intelligence (AI) can be dened as the
capacity of a machine or artifact to carry on similar kinds of activities which purely resembles human thought power. The term AI
can also be addressed to computer systems and programs which
are capable of performing complex nature of tasks. As per (Barr
et al., 1982), AI is the part of computer science related with
design of intellectual processing systems, i.e. the systems that
exhibit the characteristics we associate with the intelligence in

interpreting human behavior, linguistic, learning, reasoning, solving problems and so on. According to (Kalogirou, 2003), ANN may
be collectively dened as a collection of small individually interconnected processing units, and information is passed among these
units through the interconnections. A typical ANN architecture is
shown in Fig. 19. In the present experimental work, an ANN model
was developed to predict the relationship between BSFC(EQ), NOx,
CO, PM and HC with load LPG injection duration and LPG energy
share as inputs. For the present study a multilayer feed-forward
neural network model is used to predict the output parameters.

A. Chakraborty et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 28 (2016) 15e30

25

Fig. 18. Relation between Load and Carbon dioxide (CO2) emission.

For the selected feed-forward network a continuous differentiable

Log-sigmoid activation function was chosen for both the hidden as
well as for the output neurons.
A continuous differentiable Log-sigmoid function is always
preferred as they are bounded in nature and also easily differentiable. Also they have the nonlinear capabilities and sigmoidality
conditions. Here Mean Square Error (MSE) was chosen as the loss
function to be minimized due to the excellent properties of convexity, symmetry, and differentiability and an excellent metric in
the context of optimization. In this feed forward network the back
propagation learning algorithm is used to minimize the mean
square error of the network. Also the scaling of the input and output
functions have been done by using logistic sigmoid transfer function. In the present study there were two inputs and ve number of
output parameters. Also there were 30 values in the experimental
data set and for every input and output variable there existed 30
combinations. As per the studies of (Cay et al., 2012; Yusaf et al.,
2010; Kara Togun and Baysec, 2010; Naja et al., 2009;

lu and elkten, 2005; Roy et al., 2014c), it can be
Arcakliog
concluded that different ratios are to be assumed for test and
training data. Accordingly here 70% (20 patterns) of the total
experimental data have been selected randomly for training the
neural network. Followed by 15% (5 Patterns) of total data for cross
validation of the network and nally 15% (5 patterns) of the data is
selected for testing the performance of the trained network. For
evaluating the prediction performance of the developed ANN
model correlation coefcient (R) and coefcient of determination
(R2) have been considered.
The absolute fraction of variance (R2) is given by the equation

Fig. 19. A simple neural network structure.

BPn t  o 2 C
B i1 i
i C
R2 1  B P
C
n
@
oi 2 A

(1)

i1

On survey of a major number of the research work (Roy et al.,

2014a, 2014d, 2014e) involving the application of ANN for the
performance emission mapping of I.C engine, it is found that the
developed model have been tested against some statistical error
measures namely that of Mean Square Error (MSE), Root Mean
Square Error (RMSE) and Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE).
In accordance with this theory for the performance of the developed ANN model a MAPE of 5% has been taken as a limit for the
output parameters. The RMSE is given by the equation

v
u n
u1 X
RMSE t
t  oi 2
n i1 i

(2)

Similarly the MAPE is calculated by the equation

MAPE


n 

1X
ti  oi   100
n i1  ti 

(3)

where,
n number of pattern in the data set
t actual output
o predicted output value
In the current study, an optimal network topology search have
been performed consisting of one hidden layer which was concurrent with the studies encapsulated in the research work of (Roy
et al., 2014d). Also here the number of hidden nodes varied from
two to twenty for each of the optimal iterations (Yusaf et al., 2010;
Naja et al., 2009). According to the selection of the network topology the iterations of the neural network have been performed
subject to the loss function and stop training criteria which have
been encapsulated in table of data set.
The training of the network has been stopped when the error
resulting from validation started to increase in order to avoid over
learning of the network. Here ANN architecture with two neurons
in input layer, one hidden layer with fourteen neurons and ve
neurons in output layer (3e14e5) was found to be the most optimal
architecture. For the present study MATLAB was chosen as the
operating platform of ANN (Table 8).

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A. Chakraborty et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 28 (2016) 15e30
Table 8
Details of network parameters developed on MATLAB.
MAT LAB
Topology
Data

Activation function
Training algorithm
Loss function criteria
Stopping criteria

2 inputs, 5 outputs and 1 hidden layer with 14 hidden neurons in it (2-14-5)

Training subset: 70% randomly selected observation data (20 patterns)
Validation subset: 15% randomly selected observation data (5 patterns)
Test subset: 15% randomly selected observation data (5 patterns)
Log sigmoid
LevenbergeMarquardt
Minimum MSE
Stop the network training when validation error starts to increase

5. Results from ann modelling

On the basis of experimental work an Articial neural network
model have been developed to predict BSFC(EQ), NOx, PM, HC and
CO. The input parameters selected were load, LPG injection duration and LPG energy share. It is found that prediction of the output
parameters of the test engine using ANN gave remarkable correlation statistics. The accuracy of the predicted BSFC(EQ), NOx, PM,CO
and HC was commendable. The comprehensive correlation coefcient R of the selected network architecture is presented in Fig. 20.
On close inspection of the Figs. 21e25 it reects the unswerving
and commendable concurrency of the network predicted values
with that of the actual experimental observations for the entire
range of operation. Which also suggests the inherent sensitivity and

robustness of the network in its adeptness to map the performance

and emission values simultaneously with admirable accuracy
which is independent of the case of engine operation.
On examining Fig. 21a and b which encapsulates the relation
between ANN model predicted data and experimental data (target)
for equivalent brake specic fuel consumption. The ANN model
predicted BSFC(EQ) when compared with experimental data produced a coefcient of determination (R2) value of 0.99878, root
mean square error (RMSE) of 0.020254 and MAPE of 4.02%
Similarly after evaluating Fig. 22 (a & b) which reveals the
relation between ANN model predicted value of NOX with that of
the experimental value from that it is found that the coefcient of
determination (R2) value is 0.99999 the root mean square error
(RMSE) value is 0.61806 nally followed by a MAPE value of

Fig. 20. Overall Correlation coefcients of the developed network.

A. Chakraborty et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 28 (2016) 15e30

Fig. 21. Comparison of ANN predicted BSFC with measured data.

Fig. 22. Comparison of ANN predicted NOX with measured data.

27

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A. Chakraborty et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 28 (2016) 15e30

Fig. 23. Comparison of ANN predicted CO with measured data.

Fig. 24. Comparison of ANN predicted HC with measured data.

A. Chakraborty et al. / Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering 28 (2016) 15e30

29

Fig. 25. Comparison of ANN predicted Soot with measured data.

0.331536%.
The relation between ANN predicted value and experimental
value of Carbon monoxide (CO) is given by Fig. 23 (a & b). Upon
close inspection of the Figures it can be successfully concluded that
the coefcient of determination (R2) value which have yielded from
it is 0.991299, followed by a (RMSE) value of 0.013617 and nally
the comparison provided a MAPE value of 4.31%.
Again for Hydro carbon (HC) the relation between ANN predicted value and experimental data is provided by the Fig. 24 (a &
b). On examining the same it is clear that it yields a coefcient of
determination (R2) value of 0.99999, root mean square error
(RMSE) of 1.24 and mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) value of
0.443%.
The ANN model predicted value and the experimentally determined value of SOOT is reected by the Fig. 25 (a & b). From which
it is found that the value of coefcient of determination (R2) comes
out to be 0.99918 it also gives a root mean square error (RMSE)
value of 0.37011 and nally the mean absolute percentage error
(MAPE) value appeared to be 1.71%.

6. Conclusions
From the subsequent study and experimental exploits of LPG
acting as an alternative fuel in diesel LPG dual fuel platform the
following salient facts can be concluded within the scope of the
present study.
 There was perceptible increase in the brake thermal efciency in
dual fuel mode compared to base line diesel operation, at
maximum loads for every LPG induction strategy.

 Appreciable rise in the rates of energy consumption observed

with increasing LPG injection duration.
 Gradual rise of exhaust temperature recorded in dual fuel era at
almost every LPG injection duration scenario.
 With increase of equivalence ratio commendable rise in LPG
share.
 Laudable reduction in emission level of NOx in diesel LPG dual
fuel platform compared to neat diesel operation.
 Signicant rise in levels of un-burnt hydrocarbons was revealed
in dual fuel platform compared to base diesel operation.
 Noticeable reduction in the levels of soot emission achieved
with LPG induction scenario.
 Rising levels of CO emission observed in diesel LPG dual fuel
operation.
 Consistent capacity of articial neural network to imitate the
actual engine performance and emission characteristics in
diesel LPG dual fuel platform with noticeable accuracy.
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