Abstracts Category : Other

Study of Periodical Flow Heat Transfer in an Internal Combustion Engine

by Xi Luo

In-cylinder heat transfer is one of the most critical physical behaviors which has a direct influence on engine out emission and thermal efficiency for IC engine. In-cylinder wall temperature has to be precisely controlled to achieve high efficiency and low emission. However, this cannot be done without knowing gas-to-wall heat flux. This study reports on the development of a technique suitable for engine in-cylinder surface temperature measurement, as the traditional method is hard to reach. A laser induced phosphorescence technique was used to study in-cylinder wall temperature effects on engine out unburned hydrocarbons during the engine transitional period (warm up). A linear correlation was found between the cylinder wall surface temperature and the unburned hydrocarbons at mediate and high charge densities. At low charge density, no clear correlation was observed because of miss-fire events. A new auto background correction infrared (IR) diagnostic was developed to measure the instantaneous in-cylinder surface temperature at 0.1 CAD resolution. A numerical mechanism was designed to suppress relatively low-frequency background noise and provide an accurate in-cylinder surface temperature measurements with an error of less than 1.4% inside the IC engine. In addition, a proposed optical coating reduced time delay errors by 50% compared to more conventional thermocouple techniques. A new cycle-averaged <span style="text-decoration:overline">Res</span> number was developed for an IC engine to capture the characteristics of engine flow. Comparison and scaling between different engine flow parameters are available by matching the averaged <span style="text-decoration:overline">Res</span> number. From experimental results, the engine flow motion was classified as intermittently turbulent, and it is different from the original fully developed turbulent assumption, which has previously been used in almost all engine simulations. The intermittent turbulence could have a great impact on engine heat transfer because of the transitional turbulence effect. Engine 3D CFD model further proves the existence of transitional turbulence flow. A new multi zone heat transfer model is proposed for IC engines only. The model includes pressure work effects and improved heat transfer prediction compared to the standard Law of the wall model.