Development of a two-dimensional internal combustion engines model using CFD for education purpose

Abstract

A two-dimensional (2D) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of a spark ignition (SI) engine has been developed using the commercial CFD package ANSYS/FLUENT 14.0. This model comprises one cycle of a 4-stroke engine, including intake stroke, compression stroke, power stroke and exhaust stroke. The combustion of the fuel, heptane, is included in this model. The inclusion of combustion helps students to better understand chemical reactions, species transport, and work and heat transfer in the engine. In addition to adding combustion, realistic boundary conditions are used in the current engine model. The SI engine model has been implemented in a 2-hour CFD practical session in the Level IV undergraduate/postgraduate subject 'Automatic combustion' in the School of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Adelaide. This is the first time, to the best knowledge of the authors, that CFD has been used as a hands-on tool in internal combustion (IC) engine education. This paper presents some details of the engine model and some predicted results including temperature, velocity fields, species concentration and pressure profiles.