Numerical study of the in-cylinder air flow characteristic generated by GVD for air-fuel mixing improvement using emulsified biofuel
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Date
2018-05
Authors
Muhammad Ariff Solehin Razak
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Abstract
After several researches have been done on finding the alternative fuels for
diesel engine, emulsified biofuel has become one of the most potential candidate that
can be applied in conventional diesel engine. However, its higher viscosity and lower
atomization can contribute to several engine problems such as, lower air-fuel mixing
performance, higher penetration length smaller cone angle and lower combustion
efficiency. For that reason, this research investigated the effect of Guide Vane Design
(GVD) installed in front of the intake manifold of a CI engine run with emulsified
biofuel to enhance the in-cylinder airflow to promote the evaporation, diffusion, and
combustion processes to eventually reduce those problems. In order to do so, a base
model of 3D computational fluid dynamic of internal combustion engine simulation was
developed, verified and then simulations were carried with 3 dissimilar GVD in terms
of height variation of 0.2R, 0.4R, and 0.6R. The results of turbulent kinetic energy,
velocity contour, and swirling strength were compared to determine the optimum vane
height. From the simulation results, this research found that the 0.2R vane height was
the optimum vane height with 35° twist angle, four vanes being arranged
perpendicularly to each other and 3R mm vane length. Other different heights of vanes
also showed improvement, but 0.2R height showed the highest number of
improvements. This could be due to the airflow pattern in bowl-in- piston head shape
was amplified by the airflow pattern produced by the guide vane of 0.2R vane height.
The improvement of the air fuel characteristic with the application of GVD was
expected to contribute to a better air fuel mixing, fuel atomization and combustion
efficiency of the engine using emulsified biofuel as an alternative fuel.