10 5923 J Ajfd 20140403 03
10 5923 J Ajfd 20140403 03
10 5923 J Ajfd 20140403 03
DOI: 10.5923/j.ajfd.20140403.03
Abstract Air motion inside the intake manifold is one of the important factors, which govern the engine performance and
emission of multi-cylinder diesel engines. Hence the flow phenomenon inside the intake manifold should be fully understood
in order to consider the current requirement of higher engine efficiency and lower emission. In this project work, the internal
flow characteristic in the intake manifold of a diesel engine is investigated computationally for the different intake manifold
(Helical, Spiral and Helical-Spiral) configurations. The governing equations for unsteady, three-dimensional, compressible,
turbulent flow are solved with the two equation RNG k- model to consider the complexity of the geometry and fluid motion.
The overall flow field inside the intake manifold and various quantities, such as swirl and tumble ratios were examined for all
three types of manifolds. It was concluded that spiral and helical-spiral manifold creates higher swirl than normal inlet
manifold. However, volumetric efficiency was observed to be higher for helical manifold.
Keywords Spiral manifolds, Helical manifolds, Spiral-Helical combined manifolds, Swirl, Turbulence, CFD and Diesel
Engine
the literature. Kurniawan et al, [4] investigated the effect of There are so many factors that affect the swirl strength and
the piston crown inside the combustion chamber of a mass flow rate in intake manifold system but only six main
4-stroke direct injection automotive engine under the control factors such as plenum shape, primary and secondary
motoring condition. The analyses are dedicated to length, port diameter; primary pipe section shape, etc were
investigate the outcome of the piston shape differences to the adopted.
fluid flow, heat transfer and turbulence characteristics for The following is the summary of the literature review:
air-fuel mixture preparation in the terms of swirl and tumble
1. The literature reveals the need for improved flow-field
ratio, turbulence kinetic energy, turbulence dissipation rate,
analysis in improving the design of intake manifold and
turbulence viscosity and transient heat flux along the crank
port design.
angle degrees occurred inside engine model. Prasad et al, [5]
2. The flow-field analysis in integrating the intake
studied the effect of air swirl generated by directing the air
manifold to the intake port with different types of
flow in intake manifold on engine performance. The
manifolds is limited so far to experimental methods.
turbulence was achieved in the inlet manifold by grooving
The limitations of the experiments lies in the fact that
the inlet manifold with a helical groove of size of 1mm width
obtaining intricate flow features is rather complex, and
and 2mm depth of different pitches to direct the air flow. The
if so desired requires exhaustive instrumentation.
result of the test shows an increase in air flow, increase in the
3. The tumble ratio increases with increase in intake valve
brake thermal efficiency, mechanical efficiency and decrease
opening and not much affected by the change in the air
in HC and CO emissions. On the other hand the volumetric
flow rates.
efficiency was dropped by about 5%. David Rathnaraj and
Michael N. Kumar [6] studied Variable Swirl Intake System Thus the experimental studies and CFD simulations reported
for DI Diesel Engine. They undertook a research study on in the literatures act as base guideline for understanding the
swirl of a helical intake port design for different operating flow behavior and distribution of an engine. The
conditions. In their study the CFD code Fluent was used to developments reported in the literature have been taken into
evaluate the flow in the port valve cylinder system of a DI consideration in the current project. So the objective of the
diesel engine in a steady flow. Murali Krishna and present work is to:
Mallikarjuna [7] studied the characteristics of flow through 1. Perform CFD Simulation of the IC engine with inlet
the intake valve of a single cylinder engine. They mainly valve and intake manifold using dynamic mesh
investigated the flow pattern in-cylinder around the intake approach.
valve of a single-cylinder at different intake air flow rates. 2. Study the effect of inlet manifold configurations
The intake air flow rates are corresponding to the three (helical, spiral, helical-spiral) on the in cylinder
engine speeds of 1000, 2000 and 3000 rev/min., at all the flow-(only intake and compression stroke)
static intake valve opening conditions. It was seen that the 3. Compare effect of different (helical, spiral, helical
tumble ratio increases with increase in intake valve opening spiral) inlet manifold configurations with straight
and not much affected by the change in the air flow rates. It is manifold on swirl ratio, tumble ratio, volumetric
also found that the variations of the velocity profiles at the efficiency & turbulence in the engine.
two specified lines are smooth at full intake valve opening
irrespective of the air flow rate. Also their magnitudes
increase with increase in the intake valve openings at all the
air flow rates. Kale S C and Ganeshan [8] studied the steady
flow through a SI engine intake system. They carried out a
study of steady flow through intake manifold, port, valve and
valve seat for various valve lifts. Three-dimensional flow
within the manifold, port and valve was simulated using
computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and the code
STAR-CD. Flow structures for the various valve lifts were
predicted. Experimental measurements were made for
validating the numerical prediction. Good agreement was
observed between predicted result and the experimental data
and concluded that valve lift had significant effect on flow
field; and concluded that as the valve lift increased flow
separation occurs near the valve seat region. Soonseong
Hong et al, [9] studied the optimization of Intake Manifold.
They concentrated mainly on the implementation of the
DFSS method to optimize engine intake manifold with port
de-active system. The focus of optimization is to maximize
the swirl strength and mass flow rate in the cylinder chamber. Figure 1. Geometric model of IC Engine manifold
104 Abdul Rahiman et al.: CFD Analysis of Flow Field Development in a Direct
Injection Diesel Engine with Different Manifolds
The in-cylinder fluid dynamics in engines has been shown the effect on volume efficiency or swirl and tumble
to play an important role during the combustion process. In characteristics, to be predicted based on changes in port and
particular, in-cylinder fluid flows contribute to fuel air combustion chamber design, valve lift timing, and other
mixing which is important to the fuel-burning rate. During parameters.
the Intake process, the flow passing the valve separates and
results in a highly unsteady motion. This flow contains both
large-scale and small-scale turbulence. Since turbulence has
3. Validation
a major effect on combustion, flow-mixing and on Flow in IC engine cylinder with a straight inlet port and a
heat-transfer in an engine, to model the flow inside an engine valve lift of 10 mm (the distance from the top of the cylinder
a proper turbulence model should be used. In this analysis to the bottom of the valve) is examined in this case. The
RNG k epsilon model was used. length of the cylinder is chosen to be large enough such that
The moving mesh is generated by DYNAMIC MESH it will not affect the flow in the cylinder.
ROUTINE, a moving mesh module in FLUENT. In engine Figure 6 and Figure 7 shows configuration of the inlet port,
operation, valves and the piston move, so the mesh should valve and cylinder with lines of measurements of the
move according to the real engine in order to simulate the velocity. The port axis offset from the cylinder axis by 4mm
charge of valve and piston position with crank angle. Piston in x-direction and 21.87mm in y-direction. The cylinder bore
and piston bowl movement are decided by the stroke, D=93.65mm and the valve diameter is d=43.00mm.
connecting rod and crank angle. Calculation starts at 360 The validity of the CFD code has been examined by
(Crank angle) and ends at 108 (Crank angle). A cold flow comparing the Velocity profiles at different inlet manifold
analysis is performed for this purpose. opening with the experimental results of Chen a et al, [2] and
Cold flow simulations for IC engines can provide valuable is shown in Fig 7a-7d. It is clear that Numerical flow results
design information to engineers. This simulation allows for are in good agreement with experimental results.
American Journal of Fluid Dynamics 2014, 4(3): 102-113 107
4. Results and Discussion released during its break down at the end of compression
stroke. And this helps in higher turbulence levels at the time
Figure 8 shows the variation of Swirl Ratio (SR) inside the of ignition. And rate of combustion increases. Among the
cylinder with respect to crank angle for different manifold intake manifold shapes considered in this study, helical
configurations at 1000 rpm. During the suction stroke, the manifold results in higher TR compared to the Spiral and
swirl ratio increases till the maximum valve lift position and helical-spiral manifold.
gradually decreases till the end of valve closing and again Figure 11 shows the variation of Turbulent Kinetic Energy
increases at the end of compression stroke. In the comparison (TKE) with crank angle at 1000 rpm for different manifolds.
of swirl ratio at 1000 rpm, maximum value is obtained for It is observed that the inlet manifold configuration affects the
helicalspiral combined manifold configuration over the turbulence of the fluid inside the cylinder. It reaches the peak
other two manifolds as the helical-spiral manifold is the value during the maximum valve open condition. The
combination of both spiral and helical so twisting effect will variation of TKE is probably due to different level of air
be more. This helps in better mixing of the Air-Fuel mixture. induced through the inlet manifold. The dissipation of KE is
Figure 9 and 10 shows the variation of the tumble ratio on account of increased fluid motion. Due to this, high Swirl
(TR) with Crank Angle (CA) at 1000 rpm engine speed Ratio is observed for helical-spiral combination than other
during suction and compression strokes. It was observed that manifolds with the corresponding low Turbulent Kinetic
the TR ratio changes its magnitude (positive to negative or Energy level as shown in Figure 11.
vice versa) indicating overall air movement change in its Figure 12 shows volumetric efficiency for different
direction during entire cycle with Crank Angle. The reasons manifold configuration. The spiral manifold has lower
for this could be: (i) change in the overall tumble flow volumetric efficiency due to the flow restriction than other
pattern due to low pressure and bifurcation zones (ii) change configurations. Also Turbulence consumes energy; hence
in piston speed with CA and (iii) change in the direction of swirl produced in the cylinder consumes energy. As spiral
the piston movement during suction and compression manifold has maximum swirl ratio, volumetric efficiency in
strokes. this manifold is less. Higher volumetric efficiency is
With an increase in engine speed, variation in TR is observed for helical manifold as there is very less restriction
marginal at all the CA. However, at 120 CA, TR was for the flow. Helical-spiral manifold has average volumetric
maximum. It can be concluded that stronger the tumble efficiency and hence can be used for vehicles.
motion (more TR), more the turbulent kinetic energy
3
Swirl Ratio
0
0 100 200 300 400
-1
Crank Angle 0
3.0
2.5
Tumble Ratio
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
0 100 200 300 400 500
-0.5
-1.0
Crank Angle 0
Figure 9. Tumble ratios Y for different manifold configurations
2
Tumble Ratio
0
0 100 200 300 400 500
-1
-1
-2
Crank Angle 0
Figure 10. Tumble ratios X for different manifold configurations
112 Abdul Rahiman et al.: CFD Analysis of Flow Field Development in a Direct
Injection Diesel Engine with Different Manifolds
200
180
160
140
120
TKE m2/s2
100
80
60
40
20
0
0 100 200 300 400 500
Crank Angle 0
Figure 11. Turbulent Kinetic energy for different manifold configurations