Search Results

The real cycle simulation is an important tool to predict the engine efficiency. To evaluate Extended Expansion SI-engines with a multi-link cranktrain, the challenge is to consider all concept specific effects as best as possible by using appropriate submodels. Due to the multi-link cranktrain, the choice of a suitable heat transfer model is of great importance since the cranktrain kinematics is changed. Therefore, the usage of the mean piston speed to calculate a heat-transfer-related velocity for heat transfer equations is not sufficient. The heat transfer equation according to Bargende combines for its calculation the actual piston speed with a simplified k-ε model. In this paper it is assessed, whether the Bargende model is valid for Extended Expansion engines. Therefore a single-cylinder engine is equipped with fast-response surface-thermocouples in the cylinder head. The surface heat flux is calculated by solving the unsteady heat conduction equation.

In Motorsports the understanding of the real engine performance within a complete circuit lap is a crucial topic. On the basis of the telemetry data the engineers are able to monitor this performance and try to adapt the engine to the vehicle's and race track's characteristics and driver's needs. However, quite often the telemetry is the sole analysis instrument for the Engine-Vehicle-Driver (EVD) system and it has no prediction capability. The engine optimization for best lap-time or best fuel economy is therefore a topic which is not trivial to solve, without the aid of suitable, reliable and predictive engineering tools. A complete EVD model was therefore built in a GT-SUITE™ environment for a Motorsport racing car (STCC-VW-Scirocco) equipped with a Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) turbocharged S.I. engine and calibrated on the basis of telemetry and test bench data.

Minimizing the lap time for a given race track is the main target in racecar development. In order to achieve the highest possible performance of the vehicle configuration the mutual interaction at the level of assemblies and components requires a balance between the advantages and disadvantages for each design decision. Especially the major shift in the focus of racecar powerunit development to high efficiency powertrains is driving a development of lean boosted and rightsized engines. In terms of dynamic engine behavior the time delay from requested to provided torque could influence the lap time performance. Therefore, solely maximizing the full load behavior objective is insufficient to achieve minimal lap time. By means of continuous predictive virtual methods throughout the whole development process, the influence on lap time by dynamic power lags, e.g. caused by the boost system, can be recognized efficiently even in the early concept phase.

The reduction of both harmful emissions (CO, HC, NOx, etc.) and gases responsible for greenhouse effects (especially CO2) are mandatory aspects to be considered in the development process of any kind of propulsion concept. Focusing on ICEs, the main development topics are today not only the reduction of harmful emissions, increase of thermodynamic efficiency, etc. but also the decarbonization of fuels which offers the highest potential for the reduction of CO2 emissions. Accordingly, the development of future ICEs will be closely linked to the development of CO2 neutral fuels (e.g. biofuels and e-fuels) as they will be part of a common development process. This implies an increase in development complexity, which needs the support of engine simulations. In this work, the virtual modeling of real fuel behavior is addressed to improve current simulation capabilities in studying how a specific composition can affect the engine performance.

The simulation of transient engine behavior has gained importance mainly due to stringent emission limits, measured under real driving conditions and the concurrently demanded vehicle performance. This is especially true for turbocharged engines, as the coupling of the combustion engine and the turbocharger forms a complex system in which the components influence each other remarkably causing, for example, the well-known turbo lag. Because of this strong interaction, during a transient load case, the components should not be analyzed separately since they mutually determine their boundary conditions. Three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (3D-CFD) simulations of full engines in stationary operating points have become practicable several years ago and will remain a valuable tool in virtual engine development; however, the next logical step is to extend this approach into the transient domain.

The new CO2 and emissions limits imposed to European manufacturers require the adoption of different innovative solutions, such as the use of potentially CO2-neutral synthetic fuels alongside a tailored development of the internal combustion engine, as an excellent solution to accompany the hybridization of vehicles. Dr.Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG and FKFS, already partners for the development of engines with eFuels, propose a new study carried out on a research engine, investigating the combination of Porsche synthetic gasoline (POSYN) with an engine with millerization and passive pre-chamber. The use of CO2-neutral fuels allow for an immediate reduction in CO2 emissions from all cars already on the market, particularly since Porsche is one of the manufacturers whose cars remain in use for the longest time. The data collected on a single-cylinder engine test bench, for different fuels, with conventional spark plug are used as input for the calibration of 3D-CFD simulations.

Further improvements of internal combustion engines to reduce fuel consumption and to face future legislation constraints are strictly related to the study of mixture formation. The reason for that is the desire to supply the engine with homogeneous charge, towards the direction of a global stoichiometric blend in the combustion chamber. Fuel evaporation and thus mixture quality mostly depend on injector atomization features and charge motion within the cylinder. 3D-CFD simulations offer great potential to study not only injector atomization quality but also the evaporation behavior. Nevertheless coupling optical measurements and simulations for injector analysis is an open discussion because of the large number of influencing parameters and interactions affecting the fuel injection’s reproducibility. For this purpose, detailed numerical investigations are used to describe the injection phenomena.

Engine valve flow coefficients are not only used to characterize the performance of valve/port designs, but also for modelling gas exchange in 0D/1D engine simulation. Flow coefficients are usually estimated with small pressure ratios and at ambient air conditions. In contrast, the ranges for pressure ratio, pressure and temperature level during engine operation are much more extensive. In this work the influences of these three parameters on SI engine poppet valve flow coefficients are investigated using 3D CFD and measurements for validation. While former investigations already showed some pressure ratio dependencies by measurement, here the use of 3D CFD allows a more comprehensive analysis and a deeper understanding of the relevant effects. At first, typical ranges for the three mentioned parameters during engine operation are presented.

Engine valve flow coefficients are used to describe the flow throughput performance of engine valve/port designs, and to model gas exchange in 0D/1D engine simulation. Valve flow coefficients are normally determined at a stationary flow test bench, separately for intake and exhaust side, in the absence of the piston. However, engine operation differs from this setup; i. a. the piston might interact with valve flow around scavenging top dead center, and instead of steady boundary conditions, valve flow is nearly always subjected to pressure pulsations, due to pressure wave reflections within the gas exchange ports. In this work the influences of piston position and flow pulsation on valve flow coefficients are investigated for different SI engine geometries by means of 3D CFD and measurements at an enhanced flow test bench.

Due to its high benefit-cost ratio, decreasing mechanical friction losses in internal combustion engines represents one of the most effective and widely applicable solutions for improved engine efficiency. Especially the piston group - consisting of piston, rings and pin - shows significant potential for friction reduction, which can be evaluated through extensive experimental parameter studies. For each investigated variant, the steady-state friction measurements are fitted to an empirical polynomial model. In order to calculate the associated fuel consumption and CO2 emissions in transient driving cycles, the steady-state friction model is used in a map-based vehicle simulation. If transient engine operation entails friction phenomena that are not included in the steady-state model, the simulation could yield erroneous fuel consumption and CO2 predictions.

Development processes for modern combustion engines already make substantial use of more or less sophisticated simulation approaches. The enhancement of computational resources additionally allows the increasing use of simulation tools in terms of time-consuming three-dimensional CFD approaches. In particular, the preliminary estimation of feasible operating ranges and strategies requires a vast multitude of single simulations. Here, multi-zone simulation approaches incorporate the advantages of comparably short simulation durations. Nevertheless, the combination with more detailed sub-models allows these rather simple modeling approaches to offer considerable insight into relevant engine operation phenomena. In the context of combustion process development, this paper describes a phenomenological model approach for the prediction of operating point characteristics of a dual-fuel pilot injection combustion process.

The most significant operation limit prohibiting the further reduction of the CO2 emissions of gasoline engines is the occurrence of knock. Thus, being able to predict the incidence of this phenomenon is of vital importance for the engine process simulation - a tool widely used in the engine development. Common knock models in the 0D/1D simulation are based on the calculation of a pre-reaction state of the unburnt mixture (also called knock integral), which is a simplified approach for modeling the progress of the chemical reactions in the end gas where knock occurs. Simulations of thousands of knocking single working cycles with a model representing the Entrainment model’s unburnt zone were performed using a detailed chemical reaction mechanism. The investigations showed that, at specific boundary conditions, the auto-ignition of the unburnt mixture resulting in knock happens in two stages.

At the Institute of Internal Combustion Engines of the Technische Universitaet Muenchen a drivetrain for urban and commuter traffic is under development. The concept is based on a lean-burn air-cooled two-cylinder natural gas engine which is combined with a hydraulic hybrid system. The engine is initially mechanically charged which results in an engine speed dependent torque. Turbocharging the natural gas fuelled engine derives increased engine torque especially at low engine speeds and exploits the potential of better knock resistance of natural gas compared to gasoline fuel. The paper presents a turbocharging concept for the two-cylinder engine at first. The firing order of 180/540°CA due to the crank shaft design and the lean-burn combustion are challenging restrictions to cope with. The consequences of the uneven firing order are investigated using 1D-simulation and the matching of the exhaust gas turbocharger is shown.

This paper presents a quasi-dimensional emission model for calculating the transient nitric oxide emissions of a diesel engine. Using conventional and high-speed measurement technology, steady-state and transient emissions of a V6 diesel engine were examined. Based on measured load steps and steady-state measurements a direct influence of the combustion chamber wall temperature on the nitric oxide emissions was found. Load steps to and from, as well as steady-state measurements down to almost stoichiometric global combustion air ratios were used to examine the behavior of nitric oxide formation under these operating conditions. An existing emission model was expanded in order to represent the direct influence of the combustion chamber wall temperature on the nitric oxide emissions as well as enabling the forecasting of nitric oxide emissions at low global combustion air ratios: Both particularly important aspects for the simulation of transient emissions.

For basic research on the piston group a new simulation technique is developed using the contact algorithm of a commercial FE-code (MARC). Several improvements were made in order to adapt the MARC solver to the problem of sliding and dynamic contact. The first computations, a real transient analysis simulating the piston group, of both a two-stroke engine and a modern direct injected four-stroke Diesel engine for passenger cars, show that the new method is able to calculate the movements, velocities and accelerations of the piston. The quality of the results is mainly influenced by the hydrodynamic effects.

As the late combustion phase in SI engines is of high importance for a further reduction of fuel consumption and especially emissions, the impacts of unburnt mass, located in a small volume with a relatively large surface near the wall and in the top land volume, is of high relevance throughout the range of operation. To investigate and quantify the respective interactions, a state of the art Mercedes-Benz single cylinder research SI-engine was equipped with extensive measurement technology. To detect the axial and radial temperature distribution, several surface thermocouples were applied in two layers around the top land volume. As an additional reference, multiple surface thermocouples in the cylinder head complement the highly dynamic temperature measurements in the boundary zones of the combustion chamber.

The increase in efficiency is the focus of current engine development by adopting different technologies. One limiting factor for the rise of SI-engine efficiency is the onset of knock, which can be mitigated by improving the combustion process. HCCI/SACI represent sophisticated combustion techniques that investigate the employment of pre-chamber with lean combustion, but the effective use of them in a wide range of the engine map, by fulfilling at the same time the need of fast load control are still limiting their adoption for series engine. For these reasons, the technologies for improving the characteristics of a standard combustion process are still largely investigated. Among these, water injection, in combination with the Miller cycle, offers the possibility to increase the knock resistance, which in turn enables the rise of the engine geometric compression ratio.

Pre-chamber ignition is a method to simultaneously increase the thermal efficiency and to meet ever more stringent emission regulations at the same time. In this study, a single cylinder research engine is equipped with a tailored pre-chamber ignition system and operated at two different compression ratios, namely 10.5 and 14.2. While most studies on gasoline pre-chamber ignition employ port fuel injection, in this work, the main fuel quantity is introduced by side direct injection into the combustion chamber to fully exploit the knock mitigation effect. Different pre-chamber design variants are evaluated considering both unfueled and gasoline-fueled operation. As for the latter, the influence of the fuel amount supplied to the pre-chamber is discussed. Due to its principle, the pre-chamber ignition system increases combustion speeds by generating enhanced in-cylinder turbulence and multiple ignition sites. This property proves to be an effective measure to mitigate knocking effects.

For the gasoline engine, the isochoric process is the ideal limit of the ideal processes. During the project, a combustion engine with real isochoric boundary conditions is built. A “resting time” of the piston for several degrees crank angle in the top dead center (TDC) can be realized with a special crank drive. This crank drive consists of two crankshafts with different strokes, which are combined. The two crankshafts rotate with a ratio of two to one in opposite directions. The total stroke corresponds to the amount of the first crankshaft, so it is possible to investigate different strokes of the second crankshaft in the same crankcase. Different “resting times” can be achieved by different strokes of the second crankshaft. A specific combination of both crankshafts make a stroke possible which corresponds to that of a conventional combustion engine.

The goal of reducing the impact of road transportation on the environment can be reached by different approaches. The use of non-fossil synthetic fuels from renewable energy sources in the entire fleet of internal combustion engine vehicles is only one promising pathway to minimize the vehicle’s carbon footprint during the use phase. The steadily tightening emissions legislation confront the developers of future combustion engines with major challenges: Historically, the chemical and physical improvement of the combustion process, tail pipe emissions reduction and the development of optimized after-treatment systems were linked to improvements in fuel quality. In order to further decrease exhaust gas emissions, the optimization of the chemical composition of renewable fuels are a basic requirement.