Heat Transfer Study of a High Power Density Diesel Engine

The development of diesel engines is constantly leading to greater increases in the power density. The heat load into the combustion chamber walls increases with the increased power density. Estimating correct local heat fluxes inside the combustion chamber is one of the most challenging tasks in engine simulation. In this study, the heat load of the piston was estimated with the help of the modern simulation tools CFD and FEM. The objective of the work was to evaluate the thermal stress of a research engine designed for an exceptionally high maximum and mean pressure.

The local heat transfer coefficient and gas temperature were simulated with a CFD code with the standard and modified wall functions and used as boundary values for the FEM analysis. As a reference case, a model of a production engine with measured piston surface temperatures was used to validate the combined CFD and FEM analysis. It was concluded that using the standard CFD wall functions results in a more realistic piston temperature distribution.

The CFD simulation using the standard wall functions combined with the FEM analysis was carried out for the research engine. The results indicated that the thermal load will be considerably higher than in the production engine.