Aerodynamic and Thermal Analysis of an Engine Cylinder Head Using Numerical Flow Simulation

A computational fluid dynamics code is used as a guide during the development stage of a passenger car spark ignition engine. The focus is on the flow properties of the inlet port as well as the heat transfer characteristics of the proposed cylinder head design. In the first part of this study, the aerodynamic characteristics of two slightly different inlet ports are considered and their effect on the development of in-cylinder flow is examined. The collected information is used to estimate geometric sensitivity and assess the effects of drifts between design and actual production specifications of inlet ports. In the second part, the same computational code is used to simulate in-cylinder combustion and determine the resulting temperature and heat flux distribution on the cylinder head walls. A comparison is then carried out between numerical results and experimental measurements and good agreement is obtained.