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Numerical Simulation of Novel Nozzle Intake Manifold

To cite this article: Samyak Jain and Ranjit S Patil 2019 J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 1276 012037

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International Conference on Recent Advances in Fluid and Thermal Sciences IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Journal of Physics: Conf. Series 1276 (2019) 012037 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1276/1/012037

Numerical Simulation of Novel Nozzle Intake Manifold

Samyak Jain and Ranjit S Patil*

Department of Mechanical Engineering, BITS-Pilani – K K Birla Goa Campus,
Zuarinagar -403726, Goa, India
*
Email: [email protected]

Abstract. The design of automobile intake plays a vital role in the performance of the engine.
Any abrupt change in the contour of the intake manifold affects the performance and emission
characteristics of the engine. The objective for this research work is to study the flow through
restrictor, plenum, and runner for a normally aspirated engine for motorsports application.
Restrictor placed in the intake path to achieve the desired value of peak power and torque. In this
study, a 20 mm restrictor is used before plenum and runner in compliance with FSAE competition
rules conducted by SAE India. In the present study, two novel models of the intake manifold are
considered with different plenum geometries. The geometries are modeled using
SOLIDWORKS 2014. Meshing is done using ICEM CFD 15.0 and CFD simulations are done
using ANSYS- Fluent 15.0. The K-epsilon (RNG) Model is used for simulation with scalable
wall function. The two proposed novel intake manifolds were compared on the basis of static
pressure, velocity magnitude, total pressure, and turbulence kinetic energy to decide the better
model. The effect of the restricted path on the engine efficiency was also analyzed for the better
intake manifold model.

1. Introduction
The air flow through the manifold is important as it directly affects the volumetric efficiency, engine
emissions, combustion performance and output of the engine. Typically it is believed that the intake
valve opens at Top Dead Centre (TDC) and closes at Bottom Dead Centre (BDC) during the suction
stroke. However, in the actual scenario, the intake valve opens before the piston reaches the TDC during
the exhaust stroke and it closes after the piston starts to move towards TDC during the compression
stroke. Because of the early opening of the intake valve, it is observed that a certain interval when both
the intake valve and exhaust valve are open causing overlapping, it allows drawing the fresh air into the
cylinder which enables to replace the gases at TDC thereby increasing the volumetric efficiency [1].
During the cylinder filling, the pressure loss is observed due to rise in temperature of the combustible
mixture when it flows through the intake manifold pipe into the cylinder, therefore the charge density is
lesser than the ambient charge density. These losses account for the decrease in volumetric efficiency of
the cylinder. It is also affected by throttle pipe construction, size and design of the intake port, throttle
valve position and combustion chamber shape [2]. The decrease in volumetric efficiency of the engine
and due to flow resistance in the air intake manifold decreases the peak power output of the engine [3].
The nozzle that converges to the throat and diverges afterward is called a convergent-divergent nozzle.
It has a high expansion ratio i.e. divergent portion produces a stream of high velocities [4]. Volumetric
efficiency for the engine is between 85-90% (generally for SI engines) [5]. K-Epsilon RNG model was
used for the simulations as it is verified with computational and experimental results for air flow through
the intake manifold [6].

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Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd 1
International Conference on Recent Advances in Fluid and Thermal Sciences IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Journal of Physics: Conf. Series 1276 (2019) 012037 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1276/1/012037

Wave dynamics can be involved in analyzing the air flow through an intake manifold. However, the
actual wave dynamics is complex but the intake system can be modeled as a simple Helmholtz resonator
(with pressure waves) [7]. When the intake valve opens and piston descends, a rarefaction or expansion
wave travels upstream in the runner towards the plenum. At the same time, a part of the original
expansion wave is reflected as a compression wave heads back to the cylinder. If this compression wave
arrives at the intake valve before it closes then an increased pressure will effectively force more air into
the cylinder. This effect leads to an increase in volumetric efficiency and power. Through proper valve
operation timing and tuning the runner length, we can employ pressure wave dynamics to increase the
mass of air transferred from the intake manifold to the combustion chamber [8].
Literature is available for plenum design [7, 9] and runner design [8] in order to improve the volumetric
efficiency of the engine. Very limited literature is available on the restricted intake manifold. It is
reported that volumetric efficiency and hence the power of the engine decreases [10]. The pressure and
velocity variation at the restrictor is not significant during the intake stroke, but the effect of turbulence
in the plenum had a significant effect [11]. Hence present paper focuses on two novel designs (models)
for the restricted intake manifolds along with novel design of plenum in order to improve the volumetric
efficiency and turbulence inside the combustion chamber of the engine having restricted intake manifold
since it was mandatory to use the restricted manifold in the race car manufactured for SAE SUPRA
competition held in July 2018.
Selected two novel models were simulated using Ansys 15.0. The better model was selected based on
static and total pressure, the velocity of air flow, and turbulence kinetic energy observed in the proposed
models. Subsequently, volumetric efficiency was calculated for the better model of the restricted intake
manifold designed for a 2014 KTM RC 390 engine used in SAE SUPRA competition 2018.

2. Methodology
Restricted intake manifolds with volume (total volume of divergence and plenum section as shown in
figures.1-2.) beyond 8 times the displacement volume of the engine have experimentally shown
significant improvement in performance parameters [9]. The volume of the plenum for model 1 (Fig. 1)
is 3254 cc and for model 2 (figure 2) is 3128 cc which is about 8.7 and 8.4 times of the combustion
chamber volume respectively. The restrictor was designed in shape of a convergent-divergent nozzle.

Figure 1: Model of Restricted Intake Manifold 1 Figure 2: Model of Restricted Intake Manifold 2
For both the models intake diameter was 46 mm as per engine throttle body, runner length and the
minimum diameter in the cross-section was 305.16 mm and 20 mm respectively. The overall length of
the model 1 and model 2 manifolds were 807.45 mm and 812.4 mm and the diameter of the largest cross-
section was 80 mm and 60 mm respectively. The front part of the restricted intake manifold is attached
with the throttle assuming throttle was at the fully open position.

Figure 3a: Mesh Figure 3b: Mesh near the wall

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International Conference on Recent Advances in Fluid and Thermal Sciences IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Journal of Physics: Conf. Series 1276 (2019) 012037 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1276/1/012037

Figure 3a and 3b illustrate the meshing details for the proposed models. Meshing was done using
ANSYS ICEM CFD with the hexahedral element at the core of the design, trigonal element at the wall
to capture the boundary physics and tetrahedral elements in between them. The mesh was made finer
near the walls subsequently for good resolution on near-wall effects. The flow was also analyzed at the
smallest cross-section of the manifolds that is at the restrictor neck by making a finer mesh because it’s
the major section where it was observed a sharp change in pressure and velocity of air flow. Similar
meshing was done for intake manifold model 2. The average mesh quality for Model 1 was 0.784 and
Model 2 was 0.787.

2.1 Engine and Simulation Details

For simulations of both the models, at intake a constant velocity boundary condition was considered and
air with velocity 30 km/h (8.33 m/s) was going inside the manifold. Spatial discretization gradient was
Green-Gauss Node based. The partial differential equation for Momentum, Pressure, Turbulence kinetic
energy, and Turbulence dissipation rate was calculated to second order upwinding. Pressure-velocity
coupling was achieved using Coupled Algorithm. At the runner outlet, constant pressure conditions with
pressure as 1atm were considered. The under-relaxation factor for momentum was 0.3 and under-
relaxation factor for pressure was 0.3. The convergence criteria for both the models was 10-4. A pressure
based solver was used for simulation.
Table 1: Geometrical details for engine [12]
Parameters Values
Displacement 373.2cc
Bore 89mm
Stroke 60mm
Compression Ratio 12.6
Power(RPM) 43hp(9600)
IVO 9.5 BTDC
IVC 54.5 ABDC
Intake Valve Overlap 113°

2.2 Equations Discretized

The flow through the intake manifold was treated as an incompressible and steady state. The following
equations were discretized using finite volume techniques.
Continuity equation,
𝜕𝜌
+ ∇. (𝜌𝑣⃗ ) = 0 (1)
𝜕𝑡
Momentum equation,
𝜕𝑢𝑖 𝜕𝑢𝑖 1 𝜕𝑝
+ 𝑢𝑗 + = 𝑣∆𝑢𝑖 (2)
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑥𝑗 𝜌 𝜕𝑥𝑖
The continuity equation is then combined with the momentum equation and divergence-free constraint
becomes an elliptic equation for pressure.
𝜕 𝜕𝑝 𝜕 (𝜌𝑢𝑖 𝑢𝑗)
( )= − [ ] (3)
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑥𝑖 𝜕𝑥𝑖 𝜕𝑥𝑗
In this study, RNG k- epsilon model was used as it provides a more general and fundamental approach
and is expected to yield improved predictions of near wall flow, separated flows, flows in curved
geometries and flows that are strained by effects like impingement or stagnation. These features make
RNG k- epsilon model more accurate.
RNG k- epsilon model,

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International Conference on Recent Advances in Fluid and Thermal Sciences IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Journal of Physics: Conf. Series 1276 (2019) 012037 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1276/1/012037

𝜕𝑘
𝜕(𝛼𝑘 𝜇𝑒𝑓𝑓 )
∂(ρk) ∂(ρk𝑢𝑖 ) 𝜕𝑥𝑗
+ = + 𝐺𝑘 + 𝐺𝑏 − 𝜌𝜀 + 𝑌𝑚 + 𝑆𝑘 (4)
∂t ∂xi 𝜕𝑥𝑗
𝜕𝜀
𝜕(𝛼𝜀 𝜇𝑒𝑓𝑓 )
∂(ρε) ∂(ρε𝑢𝑖 ) 𝜕𝑥𝑗 𝜀
+ = + 𝐶1𝜀 (𝐺𝑘 + 𝐶3𝜀 𝐺𝑏 ) − 𝐶2𝜀 𝜌𝜀 2 𝑘 −1 + 𝑅𝜀 + 𝑆𝜀 (5)
∂t ∂xi 𝜕𝑥𝑗 𝑘

The value of constants are Cμ= 0.0845, C1ε= 1.42 and C2ε= 1.68.

2.3 Grid Independence

Grid independence test was conducted to study the effect of varying number of nodes on the results. For
this purpose, four different nodes were created for intake manifold geometry. The number of nodes was
83684 (83K), 179699 (179K), 387766 (387K) and 531820 (531K). Figure 4, displays the rake made
with 100 partitions to collect the data on Turbulence Kinetic Energy (TKE) for grid independence test.
The red arc portions are parts of the circular outlet of the manifold and the points marked between the
arcs are the points where TKE data value was taken to test grid independence.

Figure 4: The rake line made at the outlet

Figure 5: Grid Independence Plot

The variation percentage in TKE value at the outlet for the nodes 83K and 179K was 4.39%, for the
nodes 179K and 387K was 1.76%, and for the nodes, 387K and 513K is 1.14%. So, based on grid
independence test, all results were calculated at 387K meshing. The Y+ value measured is 244.77 and
is suitable for the RNG K-epsilon model. A similar test was done for the intake manifold design 2, grid
independence was found in the mesh with 360343 (360K) nodes.

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International Conference on Recent Advances in Fluid and Thermal Sciences IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Journal of Physics: Conf. Series 1276 (2019) 012037 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1276/1/012037

3. Results and Discussion

Static pressure plots for the intake manifold geometries were as shown in figure 6. It shows that the air
entering the intake manifold was at a high pressure but because of the restrictor placed in the path, the
velocity of the flow increases drastically attaining the maximum value of 51.3 m/s and 48.07m/s at
minimum cross-section (figure 7 at 0th m) and the pressure reduces proportionally. It can also be seen
that model 2 has higher pressure at inlet then model 1 though, the pressure at the outlet is greater for
model 1 (figure 8). However, the velocity of flow at the outlet is nearly the same for both models around
8.60 m/s.

Figure 6: Static Pressure Plot

Figure 7: Velocity Magnitude contour for models 1and2

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International Conference on Recent Advances in Fluid and Thermal Sciences IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Journal of Physics: Conf. Series 1276 (2019) 012037 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1276/1/012037

Figure 8: Total Pressure Contour for models 1 and 2

Figure 8 shows the total pressure (gauge pressure) contours for both the intake manifolds. It can be
observed that in some regions for model 1, the negative pressures readings were observed. It was
happened due to the formation of a vortex in the plenum chamber (figure. 9). The advantage of such a
flow field is that it creates more turbulence in the air flow which helps in the better mixing of the air-
fuel mixture. Also, it creates an extra swirling of the airflow going inside the combustion chamber.
Figure 9 shows the path lines of air flow inside the intake manifold. Vortex formation can be seen near
to the cross-section with the largest diameter. Whereas, there was no such flow in model 2, Fig. 10.

Figure 9: Path line for particles for model 1 Figure 10: Path line for particles for model 2
The total pressure (gauge pressure) at the outlet of the intake manifold for the model 1and 2 were 59.27
Pa and 56.62 Pa, mass-weighted average turbulent kinetic energy at the output were 0.82 m2/s2 and 0.81
m2/s2 and velocity magnitude at the outlet was 8.58 m/s and 8.57 m/s respectively.

4. Conclusions
It is observed that the total pressure at the outlet is greater for the model 1(59.27 Pa gauge). Hence a
higher pressure difference between air at intake valve and inside the combustion chamber can be
maintained which will facilitate better flow of air going inside the combustion chamber.
Velocity magnitude and turbulence kinetic energy are nearly the same for both the models. However,
vortex formation was observed in model 1 which ensures better mixing of air with fuel since fuel is
injected into the flow at the throttle which is placed before the intake manifold. Hence, it can be
concluded that model 1 is better than model 2.
Mass flow rate at the output of the intake manifold was 0.017 kg/s, using the engine specifications
mentioned in table 1, volumetric efficiency at 7250 RPM was calculated to be 53% [13]. The volumetric

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International Conference on Recent Advances in Fluid and Thermal Sciences IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Journal of Physics: Conf. Series 1276 (2019) 012037 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1276/1/012037

efficiency of the engine was decreased because restrictor restricted the amount of air going inside the
intake manifold towards the combustion chamber.
The future scope is to develop techniques to increase volumetric efficiency and turbulence for restricted
flow engine for the better combustion, performance, and lower emission characteristics. Among such
ways is to use turbocharger and use of dual or variable intake manifolds to maximize airflow can be
done with the restricted intake manifold.

Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank Mr. Mahesh Dasar for helping us at various points in due course of the
study. We would also like to thank Prateek Nagavani, Niranjan Gyanchandani and Urval Shah for their
support.

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Abbreviation
IVO: Intake Valve Open
IVC: Intake Valve Close
BTDC: Before Top Dead center
ABDC: After Bottom Dead Centre