Examination of Viscosity Effect on Cavitating Flow inside Poppet Valves Based on a Numerical Study

The higher susceptibility to cavitation in poppet valves due to the lower viscosity of water than the traditionally used mineral oil poses a challenge in fluid transmission technology. To reveal the underlying mechanism of cavitating flow physics associated with the variation in viscosity effect, the current paper examines both the water and oil cavitating flow dynamics inside poppet valves with varied structures through a numerical study. The simulation results are validated with a comparison to previous experimental data in terms of cavitation morphology and pressure distribution. According to the predicted cavitation distribution, three kinds of cavitation occurred at separated positions in both water- and oil-flow cases. The vortex cavitation, which in the oil-flow case displays a remarkable paired structure with favorable coherence, is featured with a scattered dispersion in the water-flow case, while the profound attached cavitation at the poppet trailing edge in the water-flow case almost disappears in the oil-flow case. Furthermore, the attached cavitation within the chamfered groove has higher stability in the oil-flow case, compared to the thorough detachment behavior featured with profound 3-dimensionality in the water-flow case. According to the potential core and vortex evolution, the strong 3-dimensionality due to the violent laminar-turbulent transition in the water-flow case together with the produced puff pattern of the potential core, to a large extent, interrupts the periodic behavior of cavitation, which is essentially preserved in the oil-flow case featured with favorable coherence.

Simulation and experimental investigation of swirl-loop scavenging in two-stroke diesel engine with two poppet valves

Scavenging is becoming one of the determinants of two-stroke engine performance. Efficiency of U-type loop scavenging of two-stroke diesel engine with two poppet valves is generally unsatisfactory due to scavenging short-circuiting and large amount of residual burned gas in cylinder, and it is hard to generate the swirl that facilitates fuel spray mixing and combustion. In order to deal with the above issues, a swirl-loop scavenging configuration is proposed to involve swirl and depress short-circuiting. To investigate swirl-loop scavenging performance, this article simulates the scavenging process by numerical method, optimizes the tracer gas method to measure and evaluate the scavenging performance, as well as analyzes the influence factors. The results demonstrate that, compared with U-type loop scavenging, the trapping efficiency and scavenging efficiency of swirl-loop scavenging respectively increase by 8% and 10%. Change of engine speed has an impact on the delivery ratio and trapping efficiency but load does not. Both intake and exhaust valve timings affect scavenging performance and short-circuiting to a large extent. In addition, the accuracy of tracer gas method in measurement of scavenging performance parameters is improved, and the scavenging efficiency deviation between simulation and experiment is decreased from 6% to 2%.

Increasing the Performance of Existing IC Engines by Free Valve Actuation Technology

In this current generation, the efficiency of gasoline engines is around 50%. This isbecause of many losses within the system. The most important losses are because of moving parts. Moving parts comprises piston, cams, rod etc. Investigations are being conducted to cut the losses to enhance efficiency. One such outcome is that the free Valve Mechanism which uses poppet valves operated by means of pneumatic actuators rather than cams. Actuators are used to open and shut the valves and control combustion within each cylinder and hence improving the efficiency.

A Validation of CFD Methods on Predicting Valve Performance Parameters

The influence of mesh resolution, the abilities of various eddy viscosity models, and near wall flow treatments on predicting the flow coefficients of poppet valves, operating in water are investigated in this paper. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models are solved using STAR-CCM+ 12.04. Grid-convergence is studied first, followed by quantitative assessments of the ability of standard k-ε model, realizable k-ε model, EB k-ε model, Lag EB k-ε model, V2F model and k-ω-sst model, and different wall treatments, such as high y+ wall treatment, two-layer wall treatment and all y+ wall treatment, embedded in the solver. The flow discharge coefficient (Cq) of poppet valves predicted by CFD models are compared to physical measurements. It was demonstrated in the study that grid resolutions normal to the wall and mesh quality are key factors. Advanced near wall flow treatments produce similar or worse predictions when using the standard k-ε model, and the effects of the near wall flow treatments are marginal for the realizable k-ε model. The ability of turbulence models varies greatly in predicting flow in different valves and lift levels. The realizable k-ε model is the optimal option for the considered valve flows giving an acceptable error within ±5%.