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For improving the thermal efficiency and the reduction of hazardous gas emission from IC engines, it is crucial to model the heat transfer phenomenon starting from the intake system and predict the intake air’s mass and temperature as precise as possible. Previously, an empirical equation was constructed using an experimental setup of an intake port model of an ICE, in order to be implemented into an engine control unit and numerical simulation software for heat transfer calculations. The empirical equation was based on the conventional Colburn analogy with the addition of Graetz and Strouhal numbers. Introduced dimensionless numbers were used to characterize the entrance region, and intermittent flow effects, respectively.

In order to get better results in the Formula SAE of Japan, it is necessary to develop a small displacement engine with an ideal fuel consumption rate. Therefore, the authors started to improve an existing engine by combining with glow plug heated sub-chamber and lean burn. Lean burn conditions are usually adopted in gasoline engines, having the advantages of high specific heat ratio, low pump loss, and low cooling loss due to requiring a decreased combustion temperature. The combination of these elements can be expected to vastly improve thermal efficiency and fuel consumption. Unfortunately, however, when the mixture becomes lean, the ignition delay increases, and the flame propagation speed reduces. This leads to an increase in combustion fluctuation. The authors intend to solve this problem by installing a glow plug in a newly designed sub-chamber. This type of device would usually be used to heat the sub-chamber of a diesel engine to solve the cold start problem.

Diesel engines need to optimize the fuel injection timing and quantity of each cycle in the transient operation to increase the thermal efficiency and reduce the exhaust gas emissions through the precise combustion control. The heat transfer from the working gas in the combustion chamber to the chamber wall is a crucial factor to predict the gas temperature in the combustion chamber to optimize the timing and quantity of fuel injection. Therefore, the authors developed both the heat loss and the polytropic index prediction models with the low calculation load and high accuracy. In addition, for the calculation of the heat loss and the polytropic index, the wall heat transfer model was also developed, which was derived from the continuity equation and the energy equation. The present study used a single cylinder diesel engine under the condition of engine speed of 1200 and 1500 rpm, and measured the local wall temperature and the local heat flux of the combustion chamber.

An empirical equation was developed for modeling the heat transfer phenomena taking place in an intake manifold which included the backflow gas effect. In literature, heat transfer phenomenon at intake system is modeled based on steady flow assumptions by Colburn analogy. Previously, authors developed an equation with the introduction of Graetz and Strouhal numbers, using a port model experimental setup. In this study, to further improve the empirical equation, real engine experiments were conducted where pressure ratio between the intake manifold and engine cylinder were added along with Reynolds number to characterize the backflow gas effect on intake air temperature. Compared to the experimental data, maximum and average errors of intake air temperature estimated from the new empirical equation were found to be 2.9% and 0.9%, respectively.

In the past two decades, internal combustion engines have been required to improve their thermal efficiency in order to limit hazardous gas emissions. For further improvement of the thermal efficiency, it is required to predict the mass of intake air into cylinders in order to control the auto-ignition timing for CI engines. For an accurate prediction of intake air mass, it is necessary to model the heat transfer phenomena at the intake manifold. From this intention, an empirical equation was developed based on Colburn equation. Two new arguments were presented in the derived formula. The first argument was the addition of Graetz number, where it characterized the entrance region thermal boundary layer development and its effect on the heat transfer inside the intake manifold. As the second argument, Strouhal number was included in order to represent intake valve effect on heat transfer.