R e s e a r c h a n d D e v e l o p m e n t

Development of a Virtual Engine

for Combustion Concept Designs
by Masaaki Kubo, Atsushi Teraji and Toru Noda, Nissan Motor Corporation

A virtual engine has been developed that has the potential to contribute significantly to reduc-
ing the development lead time and development costs of automotive engines.

The use of virtual Computer-based virtual engi-

engineering has neering has been increasingly
become a employed in recent years with
pressing issue the aim of shortening product
development lead times and
reducing development costs. In
the area of automotive engine
development, engines that
achieve low fuel consumption
and outstanding emission per-
formance need to be developed in
a short period of time.
Accordingly, the use of virtual
engineering to develop the
desired engine performance has
become a pressing issue. Against
this backdrop, vehicle manufac-
turers have been utilizing one-
dimensional and three-dimen- Figure 1: CFD application to in-cylinder flow analysis.
sional fluid analysis tools to
develop new engines. Dramatic
advances have been made in
recent years especially in three-
dimensional computational fluid
dynamics (CFD) techniques.
Along with the improved compu-
tational speeds of today's com-
puters, CFD techniques have rap-
idly reached the level of being
usable in practical engineering
work. However, as shown in
Figure 1, virtually all of the
reported examples of the use of
these techniques have concerned
analyses of in-cylinder flow Figure 2: Three-dimensional grid for a spark-ignition engine.
fields or estimations of the strat-
ified charge mixture in direct-
injection gasoline engines. This However, in the real world, no This report describes the high
means that their application in highly accurate combustion potential of this virtual engine
the engine development process model has been developed that by making comparisons between
has been limited to analyses of can perform the required simula- the calculated and experimental
combustion phenomena such as tions and thereby be worthy of results. First of all, a newly
predictions of engine output being called a virtual engine. We developed combustion model that
torque from heat release rates or have developed a new combus- includes a description of flame
the occurrence of knocking from tion model and have successful- propagation in a spark-ignition
autoignition of the end gas. ly created a real "virtual engine”. engine is described.

50 AutoTechnology 2/ 2004

Figure 3: Distribution of the flame area density .
Development of the
Combustion Model
The basic model employed here
was the coherent flamelet model
(CFM) [1] that is a standard fea-
ture of STAR-CD. A characteristic
feature of the CFM model is that
it solves the transport equation of
the flame area density S, which is
referred to as the wrinkle factor.
In this work, a new combustion
model was customized on the
basis of the CFM model. The new
model has three typical features.
(1) The source term of the model
considers the effects of both tur-
bulent and laminar combustion.
(2) The new model is applicable
to a wide range of engine operat-
ing conditions without optimis-
ing the model constants. This is
because it can take into account
the effect of turbulent flow
induced by flame propagation on
the unburned mixture gas as a
result of adopting a turbulent
AutoTechnology 2/ 2004
R e s e a r c h
Reynolds number as the turbulent
source term. (3) This new model
facilitates calculations not only
for homogeneous charge engines
but also for lean-burn engines or
stratified charge engines that run
on a heterogeneous mixture. This
new combustion model is called
Figure 4: Comparisons of pressure histories and heat release rates under various engine operating conditions.
a n d D e v e l o p m e n t
the Universal Coherent Flamelet 500-cc test
Model (UCFM) [2] [3]. An exam- engine operated
ple of a three-dimensional com- under various
putational grid is shown in Figure conditions
2. This computational grid was
created with pro-ICE and has
approximately 250,000 cells.
Application Example and
Validation Results
Experiments and calculations
were performed using a 500-cc
test engine operated under vari-
ous conditions. In the experi-
ments, port fuel injection (PFI)
was used to inject the fuel into
each port. On the other hand, a
completely homogenous charge
was assumed in the numerical
calculations. Figure 3 compares
the wrinkle factor S distribution
found for one typical engine
operating condition. The result
obtained with the original CFM
model is quite implausible
because the flame accelerates
near the wall. This phenomenon
was regarded as a serious draw-
back of the original CFM model.
The newly developed UCFM
model was improved to avoid
that problem. The results showed
that the flame was quenched near
the wall. Examples of the calcu-
lated pressure histories and heat
release rates are shown in Figure
4 in comparison with the experi-
mental results. The experimental
results are given as the average
data for 400 cycles. In all six
cases, the calculated and experi-
mental results show relatively
good agreement both qualitative-
ly and quantitatively. Here it is
51
R e s e a r c h a n d D e v e l o p m e n t
Figure 5: Temperature distribution of a direct-injection
gasoline engine.
Enormous notable that the model constants
potential of the in the UCFM model were not
UCFM model changed for the various engine
operating conditions. Because
there is no need to change the
model constants, this new model
can be used universally as a virtu-
al engine. Although the original
CFM model can be matched with
the experimental results at one
engine speed, the calculated
results for the other engine oper-
ating conditions differ consider-
ably from the experimental
results. This comparison confirms
the enormous potential of the
UCFM model.
Direct-Injection Gasoline
Engine
The newly developed UCFM
model was then applied to a
direct-injection gasoline engine.
The engine used in this study
incorporated an air-guided con-
52
cept, whereby the spray injected
from the swirl injector installed
downstream of the intake port
and the mixture were transport-
ed by tumble flow in the cylin-
der to the vicinity of the spark
plug. An ordinary swirl injector
that produced a symmetrical
spray pattern was used in the
experiments. The cone angle of
the spray was 80°. The calculat-
ed results for flame propagation
are shown in Figure 5. The flame
began to propagate from the
spark plug, expanded in the
stratified mixture region and
was finally quenched in the lean
mixture region. The calculated
and experimental results
obtained at different spark
advances are compared in Figure
6. The profiles of the calculated
pressure histories and heat
release rates coincide relatively
well with the experimental data
both qualitatively and quantita-
tively. One notable characteristic
is that the heat release rate first
increased rapidly and then
decreased slowly after that. This
tendency was seen in both the
calculated and experimental
results.
Conclusions
A new 3-dimensional combustion
model (UCFM model) was devel-
oped, and a "virtual engine”
capable of performing calcula-
tions from the in-cylinder flow to
combustion was established.
The UCFM combustion model
was applied to a test engine with
port fuel injection, and pressure
histories and heat release rate
patterns were calculated under
Figure 6: Comparisons of pressure histories and heat release rates under strati-
fied charge combustion.
various engine operating condi-
tions in the range of practical
operation without changing the
model constants. The calculated
results were compared with
experimental data to validate the
model and were found to agree
relatively well both qualitatively
and quantitatively.
The UCFM combustion
model was also applied to a
direct-injection gasoline engine,
and calculations were made of
the pressure histories and heat
release rate patterns, which var-
ied according to differences in
the spark timing. A comparison
was made with experimental
data to validate the model, and
it was found that the calculated
results showed relatively good
agreement with the experimen-
tal data both qualitatively and
quantitatively.
[1] Candel, S. M. and Poinsot, T. J.,
“Flame stretch and the balance
equation for the flame area”,
Combust. Sci. and Tech., Vol. 70,
pp. 1-15, 1990.
[2] A. Teraji, T. Tsuda, T. Noda, M.
Kubo and T. Itoh, “Development of
a Flame Propagation Model for SI
Internal Combustion Engines”,
Proceedings of JSAE Spring
Convention, 20035046 (2003) (in
Japanese with English summary).
[3] M. Kubo, T. Noda and A. Teraji,
“Development of New Simulation
Techniques for Engine Combustion
Concept designs”, Proceedings of
Global Powertrain Congress,
Advanced Engine Design &
Performance, pp. 28-32 (2003).
AutoTechnology 2/ 2004