Nowadays, due to the high competitiveness in the automotive
market, the car manufacturers and the engine developers are
concentrating as many efforts as possible in order to diminish the
lead-time to production and to promote cost reductions of their
engine developments.
As a consequence, many systems and component tests are being
substituted by numerical simulations, allowing a significant
reduction in the amount of engine and bench tests. The integration
of individual numerical simulation tools generates the philosophy
of Virtual Engine Development, which is based on the concept of
simulating as much as possible the entire engine as well as its
components behaviors.
This paper presents the application of Virtual Engine
Development (VED) in a PSA 1.4l SI engine development. Theoretical
results of engine performance as well as powercell components
behavior such as piston, rings, conrod, bearings, liner, engine
block and cylinder head, among others, are presented and discussed.
Those simulations allowed a better knowledge of the entire engine
system as well as the anticipation and solution of potential
problems.
To sum up, some numerical and experimental results comparisons
are presented. Furthermore, a discussion over the achieved
lead-time and cost reductions allowed by the application of Virtual
Engine in this engine development is also presented.