Heat Transfer With Insulated Combustion Chamber Walls and Its Influence on the Performance of Diesel Engines

Abstract

Recently great expectations were put into the insulation of combustion chamber walls. A considerable reduction in fuel consumption, a marked reduction of the heat flow to the cooling water, and a significant increase of exhaust gas energy were predicted. In the meantime there exists an increasing number of publications reporting on significant increase of fuel consumption with total or partial insulation of the combustion chamber walls. In [1] a physical explanation of this effect is given: Simultaneously with the decrease of the temperature difference between gas and wall as a result of insulation, the heat transfer coefficient between gas and wall increases rapidly due to increasing wall temperature, thus overcompensating for the decrease in temperature difference between gas and wall. Hence a modified equation for calculation of the heat transfer coefficient was presented [1]. In the paper to be presented here, recent experimental results are reported that confirm the effects demonstrated in [1], including the influence of the heat transfer coefficient, which depends on the wall temperature, on the performance of naturally aspirated and turbocharged engines.