Wall Heat Flux and Thermal Stratification Investigations during the Compression Stroke of an engine-like Geometry: A comparison between LES and DNS

Abstract

The near wall regions in internal combustion engines contain a significant amount of the gaseous mass in the cylinder and thus have a high relevance for the amount of unburned hydrocarbons, the wall heat transfer and the thermal stratification in the cylinder. In this context in the following study the predictive capability of Large Eddy Simulation (LES) with respect to wall heat flux and thermal stratification during the compression stroke i.e. under non-reactive conditions in an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) are investigated based on a comparison with Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS). Two different modeling approaches for the near wall region, the low Reynolds damping approach and the LES adapted model from Plengsaard and Rutland, have been tested. During the first half of the compression stroke the low Reynolds damping approach agreed well with the DNS data, but increasing deviations were observed after 270° CA (piston halfway up). The underprediction of the wall heat flux at later stages was found to stem from the underestimation of the y + values of the first cell centroid, compared to values obtained by evaluating the DNS data at the same location, and originates from the model used to determine the friction velocity. As a consequence of the underpredicted y + value, the cell is not located in the viscous sublayer as expected, and the temperature gradient which is needed for the heat flux calculation is underpredicted. The results of the LES wall heat transfer model from Plengsaard and Rutland on the other hand showed overall reasonable agreement with the DNS data, but the model strongly depended on the modeling constants. With respect to the increasing thermal stratification during the compression both methods were found to significantly under predict the DNS results. These findings are especially relevant for LES of auto ignition phenomena in engines, since ignition timing and location are known to strongly depend on the temperature distribution.