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Materials Today: Proceedings 4 (2017) 1209–1214 [Link]/proceedings

5th International Conference of Materials Processing and Characterization (ICMPC 2016)

Experimental Investigation on Innovative Modification of

Aqua Silencer
Mehta Nirava,Sachindra Doshia*
a
Mechanical Engineering Department, Government Engineering College, Bhavnagar, Gujarat 364002, India

Abstract

One of the major threats to the society and environment is considered as air pollution which causes ill effects to the human beings
as well as environment. The main contributor to the air pollution is gases releasing from automobiles like carbon dioxide,
unburned hydrocarbons etc. In view of addressing this major contributor, paper focused on modification of conventional silencer
by introducing redesigned Aqua silencer that minimizes generation of such polluting agent. Aqua silencer is mounted similar to
conventional silencer with minor modifications to the exhaust pipe of the engine. In modified aqua silencer emission is controlled
by the activated charcoal layers. Environment harmful gases are absorbed efficiently within the silencer and keep automobile
environment friendly. Aqua silencer also addresses the noise pollution concern as sound produced within water is less audible
because of small sprockets in water molecules lower its amplitude and so lowers the sound level. Aqua silencer is designed and
developed at Mechanical Engineering Department, Government Engineering College, Bhavnagar and experiments were carried
out by mounting aqua silencer on very high load engine like Diesel generator set. Performance indicators are measured and
compared with conventional silencer used in diesel generator. Opacity of carbon particles is reduced up to 32.7 %. However, few
barriers and challenges that have been identified in this article must be addressed carefully before aqua silencer employed by the
automobile industry.

©2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Selection and peer-review under responsibility of Conference Committee Members of 5th International Conference of Materials
Processing and Characterization (ICMPC 2016).

Keywords:Aqua silencer, opacity, Air pollution, unburned hydrocarbons, Charcoal, Silencer

[Link]

Aqua silencer is used to minimize the harmful effect of polluting agent in exhaust gases. The schematic
diagram of aqua silencer is shown in figure 1. Basically an aqua silencer consists of a perforated tube which is
installed at the end of the exhaust pipe. The perforated tube contains holes of different diameters. Around the
circumference of the perforated tube, activated charcoal layer is provided.

*Corresponding author. Tel.: +91-9426478330;

E-mail address:professordoshi@[Link]

2214-7853©2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Selection and peer-review under responsibility of Conference Committee Members of 5th International Conference of Materials Processing and
Characterization (ICMPC 2016).
1210 Sachindra Doshi et al/ Materials Today: Proceedings 4 (2017) 1209–1214

This activated charcoal layer is further surrounded by a metallic mesh covers. These elements are placed in
water filled container in such way that entire unit remains submerged in water. A small opening provided at the top
of the container to make way for exhaust gases to atmosphere. A drain plug is provided at the bottom of the
container for periodically cleaning of the water filled container.

1. Mounting
2. Filler plug
3. Charcoal layer
4. Perforated tube
5. Wire mesh
6. Drain Plug
Fig. 1 Conventional Aqua Silencer

Fig 1

[Link]

Actual implementation of aqua silencer suffered from few drawbacks. Since a small opening is provided on top
side of aqua silencer, therefore low back pressure is not maintained so that exhaust gas can leave silencer. Moreover,
there might be risk of water coming out of silencer because of the pressure of exhaust gas. This shortcoming of
maintaining low back pressure and water leakage through exhaust makes existing design of aqua silencer difficult to
implement for automobile industry. The modified design of aqua silencer addresses both issues.

1. Literature Review

The research over the modification and development of aqua silencer is rare. However few researchers
have worked over reduction of noise and opacity in silencer. Raimo Kabral et al. has discussed developed silencer
based on a combination of a micro-perforated (MPP) tube backed by a locally reacting cavity. The combined
impedance of micro-perforate and cavity is chosen to match the theoretical optimum known as the Cremer
impedance at the mid-frequency in the frequency range of interest. Due to the high damping achieved at the Cremer
optimum (hundreds of dB/m) it is easy to create a compact silencer with a significant damping (say > 30 dB) in a
range larger than an octave. Both simulations and experimental tests of the novel silencer are presented based on a
light duty vehicle application.
P. Krause et al. has investigation on a semi active muffler, which will change the internal geometry of the
muffler system or muffler in accordance with changes of engine conditions during driving. An active system, which
adds anti-noise or modulates the pulsating exhaust gas flow in order to smooth the gas pressure pulsation and to get
in this way a sound attenuation. The possibilities and limits of both solutions are shown by different measurement
results.
S. Martin et al. has designed a muffler for sound attenuation. A passive muffler is categorized as either a
reactive or a dissipative muffler dependent on two different mechanisms used to reduce engine noise. A reactive
muffler is designed to reflect sound back to the engine compartment by introducing area discontinuities (like
expansion or contraction in a duct), branches (like resonator) and flow reversals. This design provides a good sound
attenuation for low to moderate frequency bands.
[Link] at el. has a reviewed severe plastic deformation phenomenon in silencer. Several severe plastic
deformation (SPD) techniques have emerged in the recent years for producing ultra-fine grained materials in bulk
metals and alloys. Among the various SPD techniques proposed most of the methods are intended for processing
bulk materials; very few methods like Equal-channel angular pressing (ECAP),High pressure torsion
(HPT)technique,constrained groove pressing (CGP) and repetitive corrugation and straightening (RCS) are capable
 Sachindra Doshi et al / Materials Today: Proceedings 4 (2017) 1209–1214 1211

of processing sheet materials. During ECAP process, a problem occurs of less filling of intersection and also with a
movable bottom wall. This problem is sorted out by maintaining back pressure which improves filling of the die and
makes strain distribution more homogeneous.
Renato Barbieri et al. discussed a methodology which combines finite element analysis and Zoutendijk’s
feasible directions method for mufflers shape design. Their objective was to obtain the dimensions of the acoustic
muffler with the transmission loss (TL), being maximized in the frequency range of interest. The improved four
parameters method is used for TL evaluations and the Helmholtz’s equation is solved numerically with the finite
element method (FEM).
Manoj kumar et al. has examined the nonlinear free vibration response of shear deformable laminated
composite and sandwich plates. Authors used meshless technique based on multi quadric radial basis function
(MQRBF) for analysis of the problems.
Apurv kumar has discussed the particle mixing, bubble formation, formation of slugs etc, affect the heat
and mass transfer processes directly in hydro dynamics of fluidised bed. Author observed that under vacuum
conditions that the amount of supply of air is reduced significantly to produce similar fluidisation characteristics as
observed under atmospheric conditions.

4. Development of Modified Aqua Silencer

Conventional aqua silencer design is modified as shown in schematic diagram, figure 2. Figure shows an
introduction of by-pass cylinder in addition to main cylinder. Inlet to the modified aqua silencer is from engine. Inlet
condition to modified aqua silencer is exhaust gas from engine hence temperature is of order 250⁰C. This inlet gas
may contain constituents like carbon dioxide, nitrogen, oxygen e.t.c.

Exhaust

Inlet from
engine
exhaust

Fig. 2 Schematic diagram of Modified Aqua Silencer

1. Filler plug
2. Charcoal layer
3. Perforated tube
4. Wire mesh
5. Drain plug
6. By-pass cylinder
7. Main cylinder
4.1 Structure
1212 Sachindra Doshi et al/ Materials Today: Proceedings 4 (2017) 1209–1214

Firstly, perforated tube which is made from metallic materials is put around an exhaust pipe. After that, charcoal
layer is provided around perforated tube. This prepared perforated tube and charcoal layer is covered with one wire
mesh as real component is shown in figure 3.

Fig. 3 Perforated tube with charcoal layer and wire mesh

Then this whole assembly is connected to a by-pass cylinder with proper fitting. A filler plug and a drain plug are
mounted on by-pass cylinder. This by-pass cylinder is attached to main exhaust pipe and height of outlet of this by-
pass cylinder kept in such a way pressure head is maintained for the exhaust of gases.
This by-pass cylinder was attached to a high head exhaust pipe by welding process. All the welding processes
were gas arc welding processes and cutting processes were gas cutting processes. Figure 4 shows the actual
modified aqua silencer.

Fig. 4 Modified Aqua Silencer

 Sachindra Doshi et al / Materials Today: Proceedings 4 (2017) 1209–1214 1213

The table for dimensions of components of the aqua silencer is provided in below mentioned table 1

Table 1 Aqua Silencer detailed part dimensions.

Sr. no Name of parts Length (mm) Diameter (mm) Thickness (mm)
1 Perforated tube 950 95 -
2 Casing 950 190 1.5
3 Inlet pipe _ 95 2
4 Outlet pipe _ 95 2
5 Wire mesh 950 145 1
6 Drain plug - 30 -
7 Filler plug - 30 -
8 Supporting rod 50 10 -

4.2 Functioning:
The aqua silencer is fitted to the exhaust pipe of the engine. This exhaust gas passes through perforated tube
which is surrounded by the activated charcoal layer and it is highly porous. This possesses extra free valences so it
can absorb high amount of polluting agent. As the exhaust gas enters in to the aqua silencer, the perforated tube
which consists of small holes of various diameters converts high mass bubbles in low mass bubbles. After that they
pass through charcoal layer which again purify the gases as it is having high absorption capacity. Thus emission is
controlled by activated charcoal layer. Sound produced under water is less hearable than it produced in atmosphere.
This mainly due to the presence of small sprockets in water molecules which leads to lowers its amplitude thus
lowers the sound level.

5. Results

Government norms are well defined to limit emission of various polluting agent resides exhaust gases
particularly hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide etc. The modified aqua silencer so far discussed has
gone through rigorous testing many times. The modified aqua silencer was mounted over 40 KV Diesel Generator
set (cummins - 40 KVcapacity) with proper coupling attachment, as shown in figure 5.

Exhaust to
atmosphere
Inlet to modified aqua
By-pass cylinder silencer (exhaust from Diesel generator set
Main cylinder D.G. set

Fig. 5 Experimental setup

1214 Sachindra Doshi et al/ Materials Today: Proceedings 4 (2017) 1209–1214

Several testing and start-ups were made and emission is measured with the help of smoke meter
(MANATEC, Opacity range 0 – 99.9 % Resolution of 0.10 %, K-value range 0 – 9.99 m-1, resolution 0.0 m -1,
Linearity ± 0. m -1). The readings were obtained without mounting modified aqua silencer and then mounting
modified aqua silencer. On testing it is observed that conventional silencer indicates opacity of 3.98, whereas
modified aqua silencer indicates opacity of [Link] readings are shown in below figure 6.

a b

Fig. 6 Smoke meter reading in conventional (a) and modified (b) aqua silencer

6. Conclusion and future scope

Results are obtained to measure the opacity of carbon particle, a significant improvement observed in performance
of a modified aqua silencer. Hence this modified design leads to control air pollution in better way especially for
heavy duty vehicles. This modification in design also shows the way to improve noise level produced by heavy duty
vehicles.

References

[1]Krause, P., Weltens, H., and Hutchins, S., "Advanced Design of Automotive Exhaust Silencer Systems," SAE Technical Paper 922088, 1992,
[2]Renato Barbieri, NilsonBarbieri, “Finite element acoustic simulation based shape optimization of a muffler”, Applied Acoustics, 67 (4), 2006,
Pages 346–357
[3]M.G. Prasad, “A four load method for evaluation of acoustical source impedance in a duct”, Journal of Sound and Vibration, 114 (2), 1987,
347-356
[4] J. Kergomard, A. Garcia, G. Tagui and J. P. Dalmont, “Analysis of higher order mode effects in an expansion chamber using modal theory
and equivalent electrical circuits”,Journal of Soundand Vibration, 129 (3),1989, 457–475
[5]Boonen, R. and Sas, P., "Development of an active exhaust silencer for internal combustion engines using feedback control," SAE Technical
Paper 1999-01-1844, 1999,
[6]Long-JyiYeh, , Ying-Chun Chang , Min-Chie Chiu , Gaung-Jer Lai, “GA optimization on multi-segments muffler under space constraints”,
Applied Acoustics, 65 (5), 2004, 521–543
[7] Manoj Kumar Solankia, Sabin Kumar Mishrab, K.K. Shuklac, Jeeoot Singhd, “Nonlinear Free Vibration of Laminated Composite and
Sandwich Plates Using Multiquadric Collocations”, Materials Today: Proceedings, 2 (4–5), 2015, 3049–3055
[8] Apurv Kumar, “Numerical Study Of Hydrodynamics Under Vacuum Conditions In Bubbling Fluidised Beds” International Journal of
Advanced Materials Manufacturing and Characterization, 1 (1), 2012.