VELOCITY CHARACTERISTICS OF STEADY FLOW-THROUGH A STRAIGHT GENERIC INLET PORT

This paper presents a combined experimental and computational study of the steady flow through an internal combustion engine inlet port. The port was of generic design with a straight centreline. The three-dime nsional velocity and turbulence fields in the port and cylinder were s imulated using a computational fluid dynamics programme. Laser sheet f low visualization and laser Doppler anemometry were also employed to i nvestigate the flows and assess the predictions. The results show that a large-scale flow structure is created in the cylinder by the inlet jet and its interaction with the valve and cylinder walls. Both predic tions and measurements show that the flow is strongly dependent on the valve lift but is not affected by the flow rate. Comparisons of the n umerical predictions with the experimental data indicated that the mea n flow features are accurately predicted in many parts of the flow fie ld; some discrepancies are evident and stem primarily from the failure of the simulation to predict a small recirculation region in the port which affects the trajectory of the annular jet entering the cylinder . Calculations were also made without modelling the port shape by usin g simplified inlet conditions upstream of the valve seat. It was found that this approximation can provide a reasonable, albeit less accurat e, description of the flow but modelling of the port shape is necessar y for accurate flow predictions.