SOME STUDIES ON SURFACE TENSION, VISCOSITY AND BULK MODULUS OF COMPRESSIBILITY OF BIODIESELS BY DEVELOPING MATLAB MATHEMATICAL MODELS

Abstract

The future for biodiesels relies heavily on the optimization of the thermo-physical properties such as the surface tension, viscosity and bulk modulus of compressibility of biodiesels. These three properties play a crucial role in the atomization of fuel, pre – combustion of fuel, knocking tendency and ignition timing of the fuel respectively. Estimation of the properties could give a good insight about these properties and also about what can be done further to alter those values to be in the ASTM range defined. Hence a proper understanding of these parameters with their values is essential. The values of surface tension, viscosity and bulk modulus of compressibility can be predicted by developing mathematical models which function on the values of properties of the biodiesel such as density, FAMEs composition of biodiesel in mass fraction, temperature, speed if sound in biodiesel, individual values of surface tension and viscosity of FAMEs of the biodiesel etc. For prediction of surface tension, three models in MATLAB have been developed, a single model in MATLAB for prediction of viscosity of biodiesels and a single model in MATLAB for prediction of bulk modulus of compressibility of biodiesels. The values of the properties were estimated and then made to compare with the values of those properties found experimentally using various equipments mentioned in this thesis. The biodiesels taken into consideration for value prediction of properties on MATLAB models are: karanja, jatropha, soybean, palm, sunflower and rapeseed. The FAMEs composition of biodiesels, individual values of surface tension and viscosity of FAMEs have been taken from literature survey.