Petroleum is the main source of energy for internal-combustion engines, enabling its transformation into mechanical energy. Oil dependence leads to the needs of alternatives, through the cultivation of renewable raw materials. The current problems are the costs of biofuels, which are higher than those derived from petroleum, and the fact that there are few combustion engines suitable for vegetable oils. Thus, further research on the techniques of production and refining of biofuels, and the suitability of engines using vegetable oils are necessary, so that they can be a viable alternative. Therefore, the objective of this study was to characterize different mixtures and to evaluate the performance of an agricultural tractor drive tires, using mixtures of petroleum diesel (OD) with reused soybean oil (OSR). At first, we conducted a study of density, viscosity of the mixtures and behavior of the temperature of the OD in the system of fuel supply of the engine. After analyses, the performance of the mixtures of OD and OSR was verified by assays in the traction bar. The main conclusions of this study were: the density and viscosity of the mixtures undergo variations with increasing amount of OSR and temperature variation. Regarding the evaluations in the traction bar, the best results were observed for the yield of the tractor were verified with the increase of the mixture percentages (25% OSR to load N, 25%, 75% and 100% OSR for the fourth gear, as load and 75% and 100% OSR for third, second and first gear as load).
biofuel; power; consumption
