CFD Analysis of Swirl Effect in a Diesel Engine Using OpenFOAM

Abstract

The combustion process is a basic activity performed by internal combustion engines in charge of release chemical energy from a fuel-air mixture and transforms them into mechanical energy to produce work. Principles of fluid mechanics and thermal sciences are applied in the analysis of the complex flows developed during internal combustion processes with the aim of maximizing work, improving energy efficiency, minimizing fuel consumption, and reducing pollutants caused by the heat released in combustion chambers. Computational Fluid Dynamics help analyzing the turbulent flow phenomena presents in inlet flow, compression, combustion, and exhaust flow processes and defining optimization models that describe and improve swirl and tumble flows in combustion chambers of internal combustion engines. The purpose of developing a numerical simulation is to characterize turbulent flows developed in the admission and cylinders of a diesel engine to study the complex and sudden changes in flow parameters in order to describe a combustion process. Therefore, this paper presents a description of the flow behavior in an engine combustion chamber through a virtual environment. RANS k - e turbulence model is computed with OpenFOAM CFD code in order to solve the system of partial differential equations that define the turbulent mixture flow and swirl effects of the flow over the engine combustion chamber. The results of this research have shown a good agreement between numerical and experimental methods; an error rate of 5 % has been reached by using the KEpsilon turbulence model.