Low Volatility Spark Ignition Generator

Authors: Matthew Blesy, David Waage, Seth Rivkowich, Richard Mancini, Daniel Jaffin, Kristain Eriksson

SUNY Campus: SUNY Cobleskill

Presentation Type: Poster

Location: Old Union Hall

Presentation #: 52

Timeslot: Session C 1:45-2:45 PM

Abstract: Our objective with this project is to create a spark ignition engine that runs on a low-volatility liquid fuel such as diesel or biofuel. This is a capstone project for our AGEN 333 Equipment Test & Development class and is a competition among two groups to develop the most practical system. We are also required to develop an ignition system and must generate at least 1.5 Kw of power. The goal of this research is to eventually have the ability to operate engines with the use of any liquid biofuel. Our methodology for creating the fueling system has been utilizing different thermodynamic calculations and testing our hypothesis in controlled environments before implementing our results. The idea behind the ignition system and generator system was to implement similar ideas from systems used in the past that are simple yet effective. Through our research, we have concluded that creating a spark ignition engine that can run on any low-volatility fuel is possible. For our fueling system, we utilized the principles of vaporization to change the fuel to a volatile state suitable for ignition. Our research and findings are based solely on diesel fuel at this point, however with our research we can change the parameters of our vaporization unit to have the ability to run any liquid distillate fuel.