Evaluation of Various Dynamic Issues During Transient Operation of Turbocharged Diesel Engine with Special Reference to Friction Development

The modeling of transient turbocharged diesel engine operation appeared in the early seventies and continues to be in the focal point of research, due to the importance of transient response in the everyday operating conditions of engines. The majority of research has focused so far on issues concerning thermodynamic modeling, as these directly affect heat release predictions and consequently performance and pollutants emissions. On the other hand, issues concerning the dynamics of transient operation are often disregarded or over-simplified, possibly for the sake of speeding up program execution time. In the present work, an experimentally validated transient diesel engine simulation code is used to study and evaluate the importance of such dynamic issues. First of all, the development of various forces (piston, connecting rod, crank and main crankshaft bearings) is computed and illustrated in order to evaluate the importance of abrupt load increases on the bearings durability. The usual approximation of the connecting rod being considered as equivalent to two masses (one reciprocating with the piston and the other rotating with the crank) is put into test. The same holds true for another usual assumption, i.e. the crankshaft being considered as sufficiently rigid. In this work, the engine crankshaft is analyzed in detail with the instantaneous torsional angle between engine and load taken into account. Thus, details are provided concerning the development of crankshaft torsional deformation during transients. The main part of the paper focuses on the development and contribution of various friction components during turbocharged diesel engine transients. This is accomplished via the use of a recently proposed detailed friction model. Mean fmep (friction mean effective pressure) modeling is found to considerably underestimate actual friction around firing TDC, leading to lower speed droops for abrupt load increases. The piston rings assembly contribution is dominant for the particular engine, due to its high number of piston rings and its relatively low crankshaft speed. The model can be used to investigate such interesting cases as the effect of engine oil temperature on engine transient response, or the variation of oil film thickness during a cycle or a transient event.