Search Results

One of the most important safety issues for automotive engineering is to avoid any fire due to the ignition of flammable liquids, which may result from leaks. Fire risk is a combination of hot temperature, fast vaporisation and accumulation of vapor in a cavity. In IC engines, potentially flammable liquids are fuel and oil. To guarantee safety, flammable liquids must not come into contact with hot parts of the engine. Consequently, shields are designed to guide the flow path of possible leakages and to take any flammable liquid out of the hot areas. Simulation is a great help to optimize the shape of the shield by investigating a large number of possible leakages rapidly. Recent breakthroughs in numerical methods make it possible to apply simulations to industrial design concepts. The employed approach is based on the Lagrangian Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method.

The present paper is concerned with part of the work performed by Renault, IFPEN and Politecnico di Torino within a research project founded by the European Commission. The project has been focused on the development of a dedicated CNG engine featuring a 25% decrease in fuel consumption with respect to an equivalent Diesel engine with the same performance targets. To that end, different technologies were implemented and optimized in the engine, namely, direct injection, variable valve timing, LP EGR with advanced turbocharging, and diluted combustion. With specific reference to diluted combustion, it is rather well established for gasoline engines whereas it still poses several critical issues for CNG ones, mainly due to the lower exhaust temperatures. Moreover, dilution is accompanied by a decrease in the laminar burning speed of the unburned mixture and this generally leads to a detriment in combustion efficiency and stability.

Engine knock is an important phenomenon that needs consideration in the development of gasoline fueled engines. In our days, this development is supported by the use of numerical simulation tools to further understand and subsequently predict in-cylinder processes. In this work, a model tool chain based on detailed chemical and physical models is proposed to predict the auto-ignition behavior of fuels with different octane ratings and to evaluate the transition from harmless auto-ignitive deflagration to knocking combustion. In our method, the auto-ignition and emissions are calculated based on a new reaction scheme for mixtures of iso-octane, n-heptane, toluene and ethanol (Ethanol consisting Toluene Reference Fuel, ETRF). The reaction scheme is validated for a wide range of mixtures and every desired mixture of the four fuel components can be applied in the engine simulation.

The current trend of downsizing used in gasoline engines, while reducing fuel consumption and CO2 emissions, imposes severe thermal loads inside the combustion chamber. These critical thermodynamic conditions lead to the possible auto-ignition (AI) of fresh gases hot-spots around Top-Dead-Center (TDC). At this very moment where the surface to volume ratio is high, wall heat transfer influences the temperature field inside the combustion chamber. The use of a realistic wall temperature distribution becomes important in the case of a downsized engine where fresh gases hot spots found near high temperature walls can initiate auto-ignition. This paper presents a comprehensive numerical methodology for an accurately prediction of thermodynamic conditions inside the combustion chamber based on Conjugate Heat Transfer (CHT).

This paper is focused on the experimental and numerical investigation of tumble motion on a single cylinder optical engine on three important parameters like engine load conditions, engine speed and level of tumble. Experiments are conducted in an optical engine and the velocity fields are measured with the aid of advanced particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurement technique. For simulation, multiple cases were considered to develop the numerical process for transient in-cylinder aerodynamics to capture the tumble motion and turbulence level in a Spark Ignited (SI) engine. The simulation results, velocity fields of each case were directly compared with the corresponding test results for different crank positions of the engine. On comparison, a good agreement between the measurement and the simulation is obtained for different configurations.

The main objective of this study is to determine the appropriate boundary conditions for the distribution of droplet sizes, speed of the fuel settling at the nozzle of the injector and droplet penetration by numerical simulation using STARCD for a 3-holes injector of ULC-GE. In this study, the Eulerian- Lagrangian approach has been used to model the multiphase domain. A new strategy has been adapted to model droplet initial conditions using the Rosin-Rammler distribution, which is determined by measurement of the Sauter Mean Diameter D₃₂ and the De Brouckere Mean Diameter D₄₃ by the MALVERN method. Further, these droplets undergo the phenomenon of atomization by secondary break-up method and evaporation in the Eulerian domain. The numerical model has been used to evaluate the effects of different initial condition of droplets by changing the discharge coefficient of the nozzle, and the initial droplet size distribution at the nozzle tip.

In this study, different designs of intake ports for two-stroke Ultra Low Cost Gasoline Direct Injection Engine (ULC-GE) has been analyzed to conclude on best design using steady state analysis in STAR-CD. The four types of intake ports design with two cylinders, each having fourteen ports, have been studied. The basic differences in designs are horizontal inlet entry (perpendicular to cylinder axis) and vertical inlet entry (in-line with cylinder axis) having rotation of flow clockwise and anticlockwise. Each type is further differentiated in eight cases with varying distances between axis of two-cylinder as 85mm, 88mm, 91 mm, 94 mm, 97 mm, 100 mm, 105 mm and 112 mm. These designs are analyzed for four different pressure drops as 10 mbar, 50 mbar, 100 mbar and 150 mbar.

During the last fifteen years, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has become one of the most important tools to both understand and improve the diesel spray development in Internal Combustion Engine (ICE). Most of the approaches and models used pure Eulerian or Lagrangian descriptions to simulate the spray behavior. However, each one of them has both advantages and disadvantages in different regions of the spray, it can be the dense zone or the downstream dilute zone. One of the most promising techniques, which has been in development since ten years ago, is the Eulerian-Lagrangian Spray Atomization (ELSA) model. This is an integrated model for capturing the whole spray evolution, including primary break-up and secondary atomization. In this paper, the ELSA numerical modeling of diesel sprays implementation in Star-CD (2010) is studied, and simulated in comparison with the diesel spray which has been experimentally studied in our institute, CMT-Motores Térmicos.

CNG is one of the most promising alternate fuels for passenger car applications. CNG is affordable, is available worldwide and has good intrinsic properties including high knock resistance and low carbon content. Usually, CNG engines are developed by integrating CNG injectors in the intake manifold of a baseline gasoline engine, thereby remaining gasoline compliant. However, this does not lead to a bi-fuel engine but instead to a compromised solution for both Gasoline and CNG operation. The aim of the study was to evaluate the potential of a direct injection spark ignition engine derived from a diesel engine core and dedicated to CNG combustion. The main modification was the new design of the cylinder head and the piston crown to optimize the combustion velocity thanks to a high tumble level and good mixing. This work was done through computations. First, a 3D model was developed for the CFD simulation of CNG direct injection.

The introduction of alternative fuels is crucial to limit greenhouse gases. CNG is regarded as one of the most promising clean fuels given its worldwide availability, its low price and its intrinsic properties (high knocking resistance, low carbon content...). One way to optimize dedicated natural gas engines is to improve the CNG slow burning velocity compared to gasoline fuel and allow lean burn combustion mode. Besides optimization of the combustion chamber design, hydrogen addition to CNG is a promising solution to boost the combustion thanks to its fast burning rate, its wide flammability limits and its low quenching gap. This paper presents an investigation of different methane/hydrogen blends between 0% and 40 vol. % hydrogen ratio for three different combustion modes: stoichiometric, lean-burn and stoichiometric with EGR.

The onset and development of the inner cavitating flow in Diesel injectors is analyzed in relation with the needle movement, using Computational Fluid Dynamics studies realized with moving mesh. Two real six-hole injector geometries have been considered, one with cylindrical nozzles, the other with conical nozzles. A full analysis of the flow results is presented, including a dynamic picture of the developing pattern. Results show that depending on the needle lift, the cavitation pattern varies strongly throughout the nozzle, and affects the characteristics of the flow at the nozzle exit. A kind of hysteresis in the development of the flow has also been observed between needle opening and closing.

Turbulent combustion in internal engines is known to cover a wide range of regimes and flame topology. Engine turbulent combustion modeling should account for these various regimes observed, as auto-ignition, premixed, partially premixed or diffusion flames. The corresponding reaction zones are controlled by spray evaporation, and vapor fuel turbulent mixing with air that is coupled with combustion. This paper discusses improved modeling for the non-premixed (or diffusion) combustion phase. A new closure is proposed that is called ECFM-CLEH, for Extended Coherent Flame Model (ECFM) with Combustion Limited by Equilibrium Enthalpy (CLEH). It simulates the different phases of Diesel combustion, auto-ignition, premixed and diffusion flame burning. In the premixed phase, combustion is mainly controlled by flame propagation, while fuel and air mixing plays a crucial role in diffusion flames. In ECFM-CLEH, auto-ignition is modeled from tabulated fully detailed chemistry of n-heptane.

A modeling study of benzene formation was performed in five low-pressure, rich, laminar premixed flames with acetylene, ethylene, propene, benzene and heptane as fuels. Three published detailed reaction mechanisms were tested against molecular beam mass spectrometry (MBMS) species profiles for each flame. Differences between the three mechanisms were explored with emphasis put on benzene and acetylene profiles. It results from this study that the C3H3 path plays a major role in benzene formation whereas the C4 route is negligible. Better results obtained with Kyne's mechanism can be explained by the reversibility of the C3H3 + C3H3 = C6H6 reaction.