Comparisons between measurement and analysis of fluid motion in internal combustion engines

Abstract
The Engine Combustion Technology Project was created for the purpose of promoting the development of advanced piston engine concepts by the development of techniques to measure, analyze, and understand the combustion process. The technologies emphasized in the project include laser-based measurement techniques and large-scale computer simulations. Considerable progress has already been achieved by project participants in modeling engine air motion, fuel sprays, and engine combustion phenomena. This milestone report covers one part of that progress, summarizing the current capabilities of multi-dimensional computer codes being developed by the project to predict the behavior of turbulent air motion in an engine environment. Computed results are compared directly with experimental data in six different areas of importance to internal combustion engines: (1) Induction-generated ring-vortex structures; (2) Piston-induced vortex roll-up; (3) Behavior of turbulence during compression; (4) Decay of swirling flow during compression; (5) Decay of swirling flow in a constant volume engine simulator; (6) Exhaust-pipe flow. The computational procedures used include vortex dynamics, rapid distortion theory, and finite difference models employing two-equation and subgrid-scale turbulence models. Although the capability does not yet exist to predict the air motion in an engine from its geometric configuration alone, the results presented show that many flowfieldmore » sub-processes can be predicted given well-specified initial and boundary conditions. « less