Port Design for Charge Motion Improvement within the Cylinder

The engine intake process governs many aspects of the flow within the cylinder. The inlet valve is the minimum area, so gas velocities at the valve are the highest velocities seen. Geometric configuration of the inlet ports and valves, and the opening schedule create organized large scale motions in the cylinder known as swirl and tumble. Good charge motion within the cylinder will produce high turbulence levels at the end of the compression stroke. As the turbulence resulting from the conversion energy of the inlet jet decays fast, the strategy is to encapsulate some of the inlet jet in the organized motions. In this work the baseline port of a 2.0 L gasoline engine was modified by inserting a tumble plate. The work was done in support of an experimental study for which a new single-cylinder research engine was set up to allow combustion system parameters to be varied in steps over an extensive range. Tumble flow was one such parameter. The analysis was conducted using a 3-D CFD tool. The tumble ratio increased by 35.9% at the intake valve closing. During the compression stroke the tumble flow broke up into turbulence due to the change of vortex length. At 30 degrees before TDC firing, the turbulence fluctuation velocity increased by 23.4%.