Engine simulation: pfi engine

Introduction

The power is produced in a petrol engine is by burning the fuel. In the petrol engine, the
petrol is ignited. At first, the petrol is allowed to mix with air. It is then ignited in a cylinder
called the combustion chamber. This combustion of petrol produces sufficient energy to
run the engine. The Carburetor is being used in the earlier days before the invention of PFI
engine. It is the duty of the carburetor to mix the fuel and air in a fixed air-fuel ratio. The fuel
thus mixed in the carburetor is then given to the combustion chamber where this mixture
gets ignited. The power thus obtained from the ignition of gas is used to drive the engine.
The main disadvantage of the Carburetor is that the mixing of fuel and air is not in the proper
ratio which leads to the wastage of fuel and the pollution is high. Since the emission rate is
high in carburetor engine, the PFI engine is being introduced.

Figure 1: a typical PFI engine

The PFI is an advanced version of the carburetor engine. As it’s seen, PFI engine is having
a fuel injector for each cylinder. A computer is used to control each and every fuel injector
individually. The computerized system of the car consists of a microcontroller. This
microcontroller monitors each fuel injector and keeps on telling each injector about the
amount of fuel to be injected into the cylinder so that the fuel wastage can be reduced. Since
there is a controlled fuel usage, the engine is known for its fuel efficiency.
Even though the working of the PFI engine is somewhat similar to the carburetor engine,
each cylinder is treated individually. Input is fed to the computerized system in order to
calculate the amount of air and fuel is to be mixed and send to the combustion chamber.
Several stages of calculations are to be made in order to judge the right amount of fuel to be
mixed. After this calculation, the proper fuel is delivered at the proper instance.

 The engine temperature of the vehicle.

 The speed at which the engine is running.
 The engine load.
 The position of the accelerator.
 The cylinder's air-fuel pressure.
 The rate of the exhaust.
The advantages of MPFI engine are as follows:

 Each cylinder or the air-fuel mixing chamber is supplied with the precise and
uniform quantity of the air-fuel mixture.
 Engine crank is not necessary for cold climatic conditions.
 Good engine response to the throttle applied.
 Accurate supply of the air-fuel mixture.
 ECM technique is used to control the engine.
 High fuel efficiency or mileage.

In this simulation, we will be simulating a PFI engine and discuss various

performance parameters.

Numerical simulation and methodology

The present study used CONVERGE simulation software for the CFD analysis for the PFI
engine model. CONVERGE automatically generates orthogonal structures grids using AMR
(adaptive mesh refinement) based on simple user-defined grid control parameters this
simplicity helps the user to avoid the manual grid creation. SAGE model has been
incorporated into CONVERGE which helps in including detailed chemistry in combustion
applications with a set of chemkin format input files the fuel used is IC8H18 which has close
characteristics and chemical similarity with the gasoline.

In order to include detailed chemistry in combustion applications, the SAGE model has been
incorporated into CONVERGE. This approach allows the user to employ detailed chemical
kinetics in combustion simulations with a set of chemkin input files, which are considered the
standard format for defining chemical mechanisms, SAGE mechanisms use CVODES solver
in CONVERGE. The detailed chemistry solver SAGE calculates the reaction rates for each
elementary reaction, while the CFD solves the transport equations this combustion model
can be used for the modeling of different combustion regimes such as ignition, premixed,
controlled, etc.

Figure 2: geometrical setup

The detailed reaction mechanisms used in the simulation is JIA PRF (primary reference
fuels) based mechanisms. As you can see the geometry used is a full-scale model of PFI
engine cylinder assembly with the following details of the engine specification.

Table 1: engine specifications

Bore (m) 0.086

Engine stroke (m) 0.09
Connecting rod(m) 0.18
Speed (rpm) 3000
Fuel injector nozzle diameter 250 micrometre
Injection start time -480ᵒ
Injection duration 191.2ᵒ
Spray cone angle 10ᵒ
Start of spark -15ᵒ
Spark duration 10ᵒ
Fuel used IC8H18

Table2: various CFD models

Turbulence models RNG k-ε

Injection drop distribution Χ2 distribution
Drop drag Dynamic drag model
Droplet collision model NTC model
Collision outcome model Post collision model
Drop turbulent dispersion O’Rourke model
Drop/wall interaction Rebound slide model
Evaporation model Chiang model
Spray breakup KH-RT
Combustion model SAGE
Reaction mechanisms Jia prf mechanisms

Initially in order to check the valve timing, we will be running in no-hydro mode where the
complex mesh will not be generated such as amr and fixed embedding, etc. The aim is just
to check whether everything goes fine with the simulation and also in this mode no proper
calculations will be conducted using CFD simulations. Initially the surface clean-up is done
primarily it was found that the errors subjected to the open edges were found out which was
easier to be fixed the major problem to be kept in my mind while doing the surface clean-up
is regarding the connected triangles which is somewhat erroneous. The next step to be done
is boundary flagging the geometry is assigned to the boundaries and given appropriate
boundary temperatures for each component. After the post-processing done in the paraview
environment we will check its valve timing, if everything appears to be ok we will be moving
into the next stage that is set up a hydro simulation, the former explanations was all about
how to prepare your geometric model for the non- hydro simulations.

Simulation time parameters were set-up from -520ᵒ to 120ᵒ i.e. the simulation duration is
700ᵒ crank angle degree initial time and final time step being 1*e-7& 0.001s respectively

Result and Discussions

In figure 3 shows the type of mesh generated in the engine geometry for the accurate result
tapping you can see very well see the fixed embedding in the engine geometry since the amr
is a type of dynamic meshing its constraints in the visualizing is scarce.

Figure 3: Mesh view

Figure 4: pressure plot

The peak pressure for the engine is 3.88 Mpa which is obtained at 25ᵒ at this point the
engine undergoes compression stroke which is an isochoric process this leads to such a
huge pressure rise in the engine.The engine components should be designed in such a way
that it can withstand high pressure.

Figure 5: mean temperature

In the figure 5 shows the mean temperature plot with CAD the peak temperature is at 2480K
which is at 33ᵒ crank angle when the piston reaches the top dead center the pressure it rises
to a maximum at 25ᵒ at this point the temperature is around 2335 K by close supervision of
the graph at 0ᵒ CAD after this point there is drastic increase in the temperature this is due to
the spark produced and its maintained at 600K temperature which is sufficient to ignite the
gasoline whose SIT(self-ignition temperature ) is 210 ᵒ also the temperature rise is due to
the high pressure caused by the piston motion.

Figurer 6: volume plot

The clearance volume of the cylinder is 5.737*10-5 m3 so the volume plot is necessary to
calculate the compression ratio of the PFI engine and the maximum volume of the engine
which is swept volume of the piston is 0.00057412 m3.

( ) ( )
Compression ratio = ;
( )

Clearance volume (Vc) = 5.737 *10-05 m3

Maximum volume ie . (Vc+Vs) =.00057412 m3

Compression ratio (r) = 10.07

For an SI (spark ignition engine ) the compression ratio is between 8 – 12.

Heat transfer in engines affects greatly on engine emission and its efficiency hence its
requirement for the proper heat transfer models is necessary for the accurate measurement
of these parameters. An increase of heat transfer to the combustion chamber walls is lower
the in-cylinder pressure and the average gas temperature and this reduces the work per
cycle transferred to the piston. Earlier in some of the works heat transfer result was predicted
by solving an energy equation without using a heat transfer coefficient this led to more
inaccurate results since it assumed that heat transfer across the in-cylinder region was
considered as a global change. However, in-cylinder core regions for internal combustion
engine cannot be considered globally since there are local changes in the core regions due
to turbulence, tumbling and swirling caused due to the mass movement of fuel-air mixture in
IC engine hence its mandatory to use heat transfer model rather than relying on CFD
predictions on wall temperature.

Figure 7: mass plot

The next parameter we are going to discuss is about Combustion efficiency is a measure
of how effectively the heat content of a fuel is transferred into usable heat. So if we take two
engines of the same combustion efficiency means that the engines have same heat output
with same fuel utilization.

( ) ( )
ηc= ; …………(1)
ηc is the combustion efficiency

Hr (ta) internal energy of the reactant

Hp( ta) internal energy of the product

Mf mass of the fuel inducted per cycle

Qhv calorific value of the fuel

Mass of the fuel injected per cycle in the engine is 3*10-5 and the calorific value of the
gasoline is 44.6 MJ/kg

( ) ( )
From eqn 1 ηc= ; …………(1)
Where m is the mass of the fuel trapped =2.102*10-5 kg

=∆H (N2) + ∆H(O2) + ∆H(IC8H18) - ∆H(CO2) - ∆H(H2O) + ∆H(N2);

∆H(O2)= Enthalpy of formation of oxygen is 0 KJ/mol

∆H (N2) =433 KJ/mol =433*1000/28= 15464.28 KJ/kg

∆H(IC8H18) = -259.3KJ/mol=-2271.93 KJ/kg

∆H(CO2) =-393.5 KJ/mol=-8943.18 KJ/kg

∆H(H2O) = -241.820KJ/mol=-13434.4 KJ/kg

ηc =2.102*10-6

= =0.7981

Hence the combustion efficiency is =79.81%

Torque as per the formula is given in the challenge the torque can be found out as:

Power (P) = ;

Indicated work from the engine is 468.646 Nm

Power = ;

Time = ;

Where RPM =3000 rpm hence Time = 5.55*10-5 sec/degree

Total duration is 639.82 hence the total Time (seconds) =639.82 * 5.55*10-5 = 0.0355

Power = 468.646/0.03551 = 13.197 KW

Power = where N is the rpm, T is the torque;

N=3000 rpm

Torque =0.0446 KNm

Significance of ca10, ca50, and ca90 is the percentage of the combustion taking place in the
cylinder it's specified along with the crank angle degree from the engine performance
calculator the following values for the ca10, ca50,ca90 was obtained;

CA10 (deg) CA50 (deg) CA90 (deg)

6.83717 18.4623 31.701

For the 90 % of the combustion, the value of the crank angle to be rotated is 31.701 ᵒ The
CA10, CA50 CA90 are defined as the position of the crank angle (deg) at which the
cumulative heat release reaches at 10, 50% and 90% respectively. The physical significance
of CA10 is that it is used to identify the start of ignition in an Sl engine, whereas the CA50
indicates the end of premixed combustion and the start of diffusion combustion of fuel used
in the engine and CA90 specifies the end of the combustion in an SI engine. Higher the
difference between CA10 and CA90 (CA90-CA10), higher will be the combustion duration
and vice versa.

Conclusion

The PFI engine was simulated using converge and some parameters like compression ratio,
combustion efficiency power, and torque were calculated.

Links to animations:

https://youtu.be/G5wNlvh4tgI