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During a vehicle drive cycle, the oil in the engine oil pan sloshes very vigorously due to the acceleration of the vehicle. This can cause the pickup tube in the engine oil pan to become uncovered from oil and exposed to air, which affects the lubrication pump performance. Engine oil pan sloshing is inherently a 3D problem as the free oil surface is constantly changing. Multi-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methods are very useful to simulate such problems with high detail and accuracy but are computationally very expensive. Part of the engine lubrication system, such as the pump, can be modelled in 1D which can predict accurate results at relatively high computational speeds. By utilizing the advantages of both 1D and 3D CFD models, a coupled 1D-3D simulation approach has been developed to capture the detailed oil sloshing phenomenon in SimericsMP+ and the system level simulation is conducted in GT-SUITE where 3D spatial data is not required.

This paper reports on a transient, three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) study of flow and heat transfer in the complete fuel system of an inline 6-cylinder, direct injection (DI) diesel engine used in commercial applications. The CFD software Simerics-MP+ was used for this purpose. Diesel engine development, to meet fuel economy and exhaust emission standards, requires the precise integration of each component in the fuel system in order to reliably deliver the fuel to the combustion chamber as a function of crank angle to the combustion chamber, at the specified injection pressure. Both the model set-up and run times are practical, thus the simulation tool can play a key role in the design and development of diesel engine fuel systems.