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This work presents a study to characterize and quantify the mechanical losses in small automotive turbocharging systems. An experimental methodology to obtain the losses in the power transmission between the turbine and the compressor is presented. The experimental methodology is used during a measurement campaign of three different automotive turbochargers for petrol and diesel engines with displacements ranging from 1.2 l to 2.0 l and the results are presented. With this experimental data, a fast computational model is fitted and used to predict the behaviour of mechanical losses during stationary and pulsating flow conditions, showing good agreement with the experimental results. During pulsating flow conditions, the delay between compressor and turbine makes the mechanical efficiency fluctuate. These fluctuations are shown to be critical in order to predict the turbocharger behaviour.

Surge phenomenon is becoming a limitation of the low end torque for downsized turbocharged Diesel engines. The stable operation of centrifugal compressors is limited at low flow rates because of the occurrence of surge. In the present work a CFD analysis of the flow inside automotive centrifugal compressors near the surge line is carried out. For this purpose, the actual geometry of a compressor -including its inducer, rotor, diffuser and volute- has been modelled with a CFD code. Initially, steady calculations have been performed to have a first approximation of the flow characteristics inside the compressor. In these calculations, a source term is imposed in the momentum equations to simulate the movement of the rotor and its effects on the air when it passes through it.

The growing concerns about emissions in internal combustion engines, makes necessary a good prediction of the after-treatment inlet temperature in fast one-dimensional engine simulation codes. Different simple models have been developed during the last years which improve the prediction of the turbocharger heat transfer phenomena. Although these models produce good results when computing the turbine outlet temperature, those models focus on the axial heat transfer paths and lack the capability of producing detailed results about the internal thermal behavior of the turbocharger. In this work, a new version of heat transfer model for automotive turbochargers is presented. This model discretizes the turbocharger in both the radial and axial directions, and computes the heat transfer and temperature at different parts of the machine. Aiming for a low computational cost, it was designed to be compatible with fast one-dimensional engine simulations as a replacement of previous models [1].

Surge occurrence in automotive engine turbochargers is known to be dependent on the installation conditions. It is proven that the flow pattern produced by the inlet ducting at the compressor inducer modifies surge margin. But also the engine intake line acoustics, both compressor upstream and downstream, affects turbocharger surge. In the paper the effect of different parameters in the intake line geometry on compressor surge is investigated. Modifications in the air filter volume, compressor inlet geometry and compressor outlet length have been considered. Surge limit obtained on a steady gas-stand is compared to those measured on the engine test bench using two different methodologies. Testing results show significant differences in term of surge line shift and the corresponding engine low end torque. A 1D model of the engine has been built using a non-steady compressor model able to predict surge occurrence.