Numerical Investigation of the Characteristics of the In-Cylinder Air Flow in a Compression-Ignition Engine for the Application of Emulsified Biofuels

Abstract

This paper presents a numerical analysis of the application of emulsified biofuel (EB) to diesel engines. The study performs a numerical study of three different guide vane designs (GVD) that are incorporated with a shallow depth re-entrance combustion chamber (SCC) piston. The GVD variables were used in three GVD models with different vane heights, that is, 0.2, 0.4 and 0.6 times the radius of the intake runner (R) and these were named 0.20R, 0.40R and 0.60R. The SCC piston and GVD model were designed using SolidWorks 2017, while ANSYS Fluent version 15 was used to perform cold flow engine 3D analysis. The results of the numerical study showed that 0.60R is the optimum guide vane height, as the turbulence kinetic energy (TKE), swirl ratio (Rs), tumble ratio (RT) and cross tumble ratio (RCT) in the fuel injection region improved from the crank angle before the start of injection (SOI) and start of combustion (SOC). This is essential to break up the heavier-fuel molecules of EB so that they mix with the surrounding air, which eventually improves the engine performance.