Week 10: Project 1 - FULL HYDRO case set up (PFI)
Objective: To simulate the Full-hydro case setup of PFI.
- What is the compression ratio of the engine?
- Calculate the Combustion efficiency of the Engine.
- Determine the Power and torque of the engine by using an engine performance calculator.
- What is the significance of CA10, CA50, and CA90?
- Why do we need a wall heat transfer model? Why can't we predict wall temperature from CFD simulation?
Given parameters:
Engine Geometric Parameters
- Bore =0.086 m
- Stroke = 0.09 m
- Connecting rod length = 0.18 m
- RPM = 3000
Run parameters
- Simulation mode: No Hydro
Simulation time parameters
- Start time: -520 deg
- end time: 120 deg
Boundary conditions
- Piston temperature - 450K
- Liner temperature - 450K
- Head temperature - 450K
- Spark Plug temperature - 550K
- Spark Plug electrode temperature - 600K
- Exhaust ports temperature - 500K
- Exhaust outflow - 1 bar
- Exhaust outflow temperature - 800k
- Exhaust species concentration - Calculate the stoichiometric condition
- Exhaust valve top temperature - 525K
- Exhaust valve angle temperature - 525K
- Exhaust valve bottom temperature - 525K
- Intake port - 1 temperature 425K
- Intake port - 2 temperature 425K
- Inflow pressure - 1 bar total pressure
- Inflow temperature - 363K
- Inflow species - Air
- Intake valve top temperature - 480K
- Intake valve angle temperature - 480K
- Intake valve bottom temeprature - 480K
Initial conditions
- Intake port - 1 (closer to combustion chamber)
- ic8h18 - 0.025508
- o2 - 0.20157
- n2 - 0.77292
- Temperature - 390k
- pressure - 1 bar
- Intake port - 2 (away from combustion chamber)
- Air
- Temperature - 370K
- Pressure - 1 bar
- Cylinder
- Pressure - 1.85731 bar
- Temperature - 1360K
- Stoichiometric composition
Injection Parameters
- Fuel flow rate = 7.5e-4 Kg/second
- Injection start time = -480.0
- Injection duration = 191.2
- Fuel temperature = 330K
Nozzle positions
Nozzle diameter = 250 micrometer
Circular injection radius = Nozzle radius
Spray cone angle = 10
- Nozzle 0
- center 0.0823357 0.00100001 0.07019
- Align Vector -0.732501 0.210489 -0.647408
- Nozzle 1
- center 0.0823357 -0.00099999 0.07019
- Align Vector -0.732501 -0.210489 -0.647408
- Nozzle 2
- center 0.0823357 -0.0004 0.07019
- Align Vector -0.5 -0.2 -0.647408
- Nozzle 3
- center 0.0823357 0.0003 0.07019
- Align Vector -0.5 0.2 -0.647408
Spark Ignition Parameters
- Start of spark = -15 deg
- Spark duration = 10 deg
- Spark location = -0.003 0 0.0091
- Spark radius = 0.0005m
Geometry:

Simulation Case setup:
Application type:

- Crank angle based

Materials:
- Gas Simulation

- We select Parcel Simulation


- Global Transport Parameters

- Reaction Mechanism
therm.dat and mech.dat values loaded into the profile.
- Species

Simulation Parameters:
- Run Parameters

- Simulation time Parameters

- Solver Parameters

Regions and initialization
A region is a collection of boundaries used to differentiate different areas in the boundary.
- Cylinder region

- Intake Port 1

- Intake Port 2

- Exhaust region

Boundary Conditions:
- Piston

- Inflow

- Liner

- Cylinder Head

- Exhaust Port

- Outflow

- Exhaust Valve Top

- Exhaust valve angle boundary

- Exhaust Valve Bottom

- Intake Port

- Intake valve bottom

- Intake valve angle

- Intake valve top

- Spark plug

- Spark plug terminal

- Intake port 2

Physical Models:
We select Spray modeling, Combustion modeling, Turbulence modeling, and Source/sink modeling.

- Spray modeling
(a) General

(b) Collision/Breakup/Drag

(c) Wall Interaction

(d) Injectors









- Combustion modeling


- Turbulence modeling

- Source/sink modeling


Grid Control:
We select Base grid, Adaptive mesh refinement, and Fixed embedding.

- Base grid

- Adaptive mesh refinement


- Fixed embedding






Results:
Compression Ratio
In a reciprocating engine, the piston oscillates between the Top dead center and the bottom dead center. These correspond to the minimum and maximum values respectively. The ratio between these two volumes is known as the compression ratio.

From the above graph we, note that
Maximum Cylinder Volume = `5.74186**10^(-4)` `m^(3)`
Minimum Cylinder Volume = `5.73996**10^(-5)` `m^(3)`
Compression ratio = `(5.74186**10^(-4))/(5.73996**10^(-5))`
Compression ratio = 10
Combustion efficiency of the Engine
Combustion efficiency is defined as the energy released by the burnt fuel to the theoretical energy content of the fuel.

`eta_(combustion)` = (Integrated Heat Release rate)/(mass of fuel * LHV)
Integrated Heat Release Rate= 1241.15 J
mass of fuel = 3x10^-5 kg
LHV = 43.4 MJ/kg
`eta_(combustion)` = `(1241.15)/(3**10^(-5) **43.4 **10^(6))` = 95.3 %
Need for Wall Heat Transfer model
Heat loss through the cylinder walls has a detrimental impact on the performance of the engine. Some of the undesirable effects include a reduction in volumetric efficiency, incomplete combustion, etc. The description of heat transfer in an ICE is a challenging task, considering the different systems (intake and exhaust ports, coolant circuit, lubricant oil subsystem), the different heat transfer mechanisms (convection, conduction, and radiation), and the rapid and unsteady changes that take place inside the cylinder. So there is a need to accurately model this phenomenon. Due to the complexity involved in a mathematical solution, there is a need to adopt suitable modeling.
Why we cannot use CFD to predict wall temperature?
CFD can provide precise and instantaneous information about the flow within the engine (temperature, pressure, velocity distributions), but require temperature boundary conditions for the engine walls, which are typically assumed as being constant throughout the engine cycle. This will affect the combustion process, thus leading to inaccurate results Imposing appropriate wall temperature boundary conditions is not an easy task, and may require some iterative process. However, such calculations with a given surface temperature are not sufficient when the focus is on analyzing the heat transfer within the engine. The heat flux and gas properties of the CFD are used as boundary conditions for the heat conduction calculation of the solid regions.
Significance of CA10, CA50, and CA90
The CA10, CA50, and CA90 are defined as positions of the crank angle at which the cumulative heat release rate reaches 10%, 50 %, and 90%. The physical significance of CA10 is that it is used to signify the start of ignition in an engine, while CA 50 signifies the end of pre-mixed combustion and the start of diffusion combustion of fuel used in the engine. The greater the difference between CA10 and CA50, the higher the duration of combustion and vice versa.
Plots
- Cylinder Pressure

- Mean Temperature

Conclusion
In this project, a detailed simulation of the IC engine has been carried out. In the case setup, spray and combustion modeling was set up. The movement of piston, intake, and exhaust valves was created using regions and events. Mesh refinement techniques such as AMR and Fixed embedding were adopted to obtain finer results.
After simulation and post-processing, engine performance parameters such as compression ratio, power, and torque were computed and are listed below
Compression Ration=10.1
Power = 35.119 Kw
Apart from this, other aspects such as cylinder mean temperature and pressure, liquid particles, and emissions were studied as a function of a crank angle. Also, animations for temperature and spray modeling were examined.