Modeling of Turbulent Heat Transfer with Application to IC Engines

A detailed research program has been initiated to study the modeling aspects of turbulent heat transfer in engine applications using multidimensional codes. The main concerns are the representation of turbulent transport in flow regions that differ significantly from constant-pressure boundary layers for which the currently used models have been developed and validated. Both the treatment of near-wall and bulk-flow transport are being investigated. Models are being tested on several representative test cases. A number of such test cases have been identified, which contain key flow features relevant to engine applications and for which a good experimental data base exists. Calculations of these test cases have been made using a standard k-ε model. These calculations pointed out deficiencies in the model, and work is now in progress on alternative approaches to the modeling of turbulent transport processes, which would represent the essential physics and provide better correlation with experiments.