Karnataka - Gulbarga   

Devise to help achieve optimum utilisation of fuel in vehicles

T.V. Sivanandan

WONDER EQUIPMENT: The oxygen cylinder developed by the engineers of NEKRTC.

GULBARGA: The engineers of North East Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (NEKRTC) have come out with a devise that helps increase fuel consumption in vehicles. The experiment will revolutionise the concept of optimum utilisation of combustible fuel in vehicles thereby increasing the mileage considerably.

At present, a major issue before the engineers of transport corporations was optimum utilisation of fuel and increasing mileage. One of the major hurdles in achieving this was the nearly 15 per cent of fuel going waste in the exhaust because of lack of proper quantity of oxygen which would enable the fuel to burn completely.

To overcome this, the NEKRTC engineers under the leadership of the Chief Mechanical Manager, B.C. Ramesh, and the Divisional Mechanical Engineer, H.V. Nagesh, have engineered an apparatus through which oxygen is pumped into the internal combustion engine to attain maximum combustion resulting in optimum utilisation of fuel and increased mileage in vehicles.

Mr. Ramesh said in an internal combustion engine, the products of combustion are compressed in the engine cylinder by action of piston to attain certain pressure, ignited to burn the combustible material in the presence of air. This increased the temperature and generated power to move the piston. This linear motion is transferred to move the vehicle forward.

Mr. Ramesh said the engineers of the Gulbarga depot of NEKRTC worked on the new devise for nearly six months to come out with the foolproof method to increase the burning of fuel by pumping in oxygen into the engine.

An oxygen cylinder is installed in the vehicle and oxygen is let into the engine through a self-controlling mechanism in the accelerator pedal.

He said the engineers used several other experiments such as adding other ingredients, including water, in the engine to achieve optimum utilisation of fuel, but finally settled with the new devise which provided the answer to the problem.

In the new devise, a toggle switch below the accelerator pedal pumps in oxygen from the cylinder connected to the inlet manifold. The quantity of oxygen supplied is directly proportional to the rate of application of the accelerator pedal.

He said the performance of the engine was measured in terms of emission levels and the mileage achieved. While the mileage increased from 5.35 km to 6.75 km per litre of diesel, the smoke level has come down from 53 to 37 units.

Fuel cost

The Managing Director of the NEKRTC, Gangaram Baderia, told The Hindu that NEKRTC was the first transport corporation in the country to come out with this new devise. The average saving in fuel cost will be Rs. 1.53 crores every month for the NEKRTC if the new devise is introduced in its buses.

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