Three-dimensional Numerical Analysis of Flow inside Exhaust Manifolds

The proposed paper aims to present the three-dimensional CFD analysis of flow inside an automotive exhaust manifold including catalytic converter conducted by SMARTtech Fluidos for TENNECO Automotive do Brasil Ltda., in order to determine the flow distribution inside a catalytic converter and calculate performance indexes regarding fluid flow. Two key-parameters (uniformity and velocity indexes) were calculated in the post-process step to account for the efficiency of the exhaust manifolds.

Three different geometries were analyzed for the operation conditions of two different engines. The simulations were conducted to take into account the flow coming from each of the four runners, totalizing 24 analyses. The catalytic converter was considered as a porous medium and the porosity coefficients were extracted from experimental results. No chemical reactions inside the catalytic converter have been taken into account in this study.