Numerical simulation of spark ignition engine using OpenFOAM ®

Publication date: September 2016 Source:Perspectives in Science, Volume 8 Author(s): B.T. Kannan, P.S. Srivathsan The present work is the numerical investigation of Spark Ignition (SI) engines using an open source Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tool. Investigations on the usage of OpenFOAM® CFD tool has been carried out for the simulation of SI engines using engineFoam solver. Four-valve pent roof type engine is chosen for the present simulations. The standard k–ɛ turbulence model is used along with the Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) equations for simulating the flow field. Energy equation and transport equation for regress variable is solved along with the momentum equations. Xi model is used for the transport and Gulder's correlation is used for laminar flame speed. Unstrained model is used for calculating the laminar flame speed velocity. Two simulations are carried out one with cold flow and the other with combustion. For combustion analysis, Iso-octane fuel is used. Average cylinder pressure is tracked for different Crank Angles (CA) from −180 to 60. The temperature contours are plotted on a vertical plane inside the cylinder to indicate the rise in temperature due to combustion. The results indicate that the open source CFD code can be an ideal choice for engine designers.

Source: Perspectives in Science - September 20, 2016 Category: Science Source Type: research