3-D Steady-State Wall Heat Fluxes and Thermal Analysis of a Stratified-Charge Rotary Engine

A three-dimensional model is used to compute the flow,sprays and combustion in a stratified-charge rotary engine. Wall temperatures estimated from available measurements are used as boundary conditions for the energy equation. The computations provide local and instantaneous heat fluxes on the rotor and the rotor housing. The instantaneous heat fluxes are integrated in time over one cycle of the rotor to obtain estimates of local cycle averaged heat flux through the rotor and the rotor housing. These are then used as boundary conditions in a thermal analysis of the rotor and rotor housing with known coolant-side flow rates and heat transfer coefficients. The thermal analysis is done using a finite-element three-dimensional code which provides updated estimates of the rotor and rotor housing wall temperatures. These wall temperatures agree within ±20°C of the measured wall temperatures. The coupling of the two codes extends very significantly the information obtained from the wall temperature measurements and, in particular, allows one to identify wall regions with extreme heat fluxes.