Air Handling System Concept Development to Reduce Bank to Bank Variation of Air and Fuel in a Natural Gas V-Engine

Air handling system of a turbocharged natural gas 12 cylinder V engine is considered in the present study. The aim of the study is to come up with a methodology which can be used to design a concept which has acceptable percentage difference of fuel variation from bank to bank and low pressure drop compared to an existing product design. To understand flow dynamics and mixing phenomenon Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis has been conducted on the baseline air handling system. This study helped in identifying the domain to be optimized to reduce bank to bank percentage variation of fuel. Out of many developed concepts, two concepts have been selected and further study carried out. Baseline design has a complicated mixer device to reduce bank to bank fuel fraction variation; however both of the selected concepts are without the mixer device. A hybrid concept has been generated by incorporating the best features of both the selected concepts. Robustness of the final hybrid concept has been evaluated by analyzing it at different operating conditions.