Investigation of vortex ring-like structures in internal combustion engines, taking into account thermal and confinement effects

This proposal is concerned with the non-trivial generalisation of previously-developed models for the analysis of multi-phase vortex ring-like structures to take into account thermal, swirl and confinement effects. Thermal effects include the presence of thermal gradients in the carrier phase, and heating and evaporation of droplets. Confinement effects will take into account the contribution of walls in the enclosure, which are particularly important in the case of modelling processes in internal combustion engines. Three modelling approaches will be used: Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS), the full Lagrangian approach (the Osiptsov-Lagrangian method) and asymptotic/analytical models. Development of all these approaches for modelling vortex ring-like structures has so far been mainly focused on cases when the contribution of the above-mentioned thermal and confinement effects can be ignored. In the present project, all three above-mentioned approaches will be generalised to take thermal and confinement effects into account. This generalisation is not trivial, especially in the case of the full Lagrangian and asymptotic/analytical approach, and nobody, to the best of our knowledge, has attempted to do this. Modelling will be specifically focused on combustible gas and gasoline internal combustion engines, but it is expected that the methods to be developed could be generalised to a much wider range of applications. Modelling work on the project will be complemented by experimental studies of vortex ring-like structures in the above-mentioned engines. The direct injection of gas and liquid fuel sprays (LPG/CNG and gasoline engines) and the motions of the continuous phase will be studied in a closed, quiescent observation chamber using laser-based measurement techniques. New data to describe the injection velocity profile and droplet concentration will be acquired to support the modelling approaches. The experimental study will take into account heating and confinement.

The initial stage of the work will be focused on combustible gas internal combustion engines, which will allow us to restrict our analysis to a one-phase flow, using the DNS and asymptotic/analytical approach. The main new effect taken into account at this stage will be the presence of temperature gradients in the enclosure, swirl and the presence of interior walls. At the next stage the above model will be generalised to take into account the effects of liquid sprays in the enclosure. This new approach to the modelling of multiphase flows will incorporate the jet and droplet break-up models developed as a result of work on the previous EPSRC project EP/F069855/1. Where appropriate, predictions resulting from the full Lagrangian and analytical/asymptotic models will be compared with predictions based on DNS simulations of transient vortex ring-like structures. We will also investigate the feasibility of incorporating of the full Lagrangian and analytic/asymptotic models into the research CFD code KIVA 3 and commercial CFD codes VECTIS and FLUENT. Predictions from numerical and analytical models will be validated against in-house experimental results obtained in combustible gas and gasoline engine-like conditions. The applicability of the results to the optimisation of processes in these engines will be investigated. This will be a collaborative project involving external visiting researchers whose expertise is mainly focused on the development of the numerical and analytical/asymptotic vortex ring models and the full Lagrangian method. This project will ensure a qualitatively new level of physical and mathematical models, as developed in the previously-funded EPSRC project EP/E047912/1, and the currently active project EP/K005758/1. The anticipated overlap in time between the work on this project and currently active EPSRC project EP/K005758/1 will ensure the continuity of research in this direction.

It is expected that outside of the academic research community the principal beneficiaries of this research will be mainly the automotive industry via the industrial partner, Ricardo Consulting Engineers Ltd. Modellers of the processes involved in internal combustion engines will be able to use more accurate models for droplet heating and evaporation, which will lead to more reliable predictions of the models. The project's results will be reported at the 14th ICLASS Conference in 2016, the 27th ILASS conference in 2017, the 11th Int. Conf. of Numerical Analysis and Applied Mathematics in 2016, and the SAE World Congress in 2017, which as well as academics attract many representatives from industry, including the automotive industry.

The project is expected to directly benefit the designers of fuel injection systems through an increased understanding of droplet dynamics. Importantly, understanding will be advanced on the compromise between the requirements of a direct fuel injection system that can optimally satisfy both homogeneous and stratified charge operations, whilst simultaneously minimising engine emissions. It is expected that some of the results will be directly applicable to the modelling of other spray phenomena (e.g. aerosol sprays in medicine or agriculture).

Project results will be disseminated to a wider audience through publication on the Sir Harry Ricardo Laboratories (SHRL) website and on the University of Brighton open access repository. This will allow the general public to familiarise themselves with the state-of-the-art developments in this field. A specific website for the project will also be developed.

Three Visiting Researchers, Professor Ionut Danaila, Professor Alexander Osiptsov and Dr Felix Kaplanski, are expected to have direct contact with Ricardo Consulting Engineers Ltd and the wider engineering and environmental community during the course of their research at the Sir Harry Ricardo Laboratories. It is likely that their involvement in the project will contribute to the creation of links between the British, French, Estonian and Russian academic and industrial communities. A collaboration agreement between the Sir Harry Ricardo Laboratories and the Visiting Researchers' home institutions (the University of Rouen, Moscow State University (Russia) and the Tallinn Technical University (Estonia)) will be prepared in due course if the project is funded by the EPSRC.

It is expected that the Research Fellow working on this project will be primarily involved in all impact activities, with strong support from the Principal Investigator, Co-investigators and Visiting Researchers.