Roll no: MDM17B008

Heat transfer analysis of Air cooled IC engine with fins

1.Introduction:

Internal combustion engines at best can transform about 25 to 35 per cent of the chemical
energy in the fuel into mechanical energy. About 35 per cent of the heat generated is lost to
the cooling medium. During the process of combustion, the cylinder gas temperature often
reaches quite a high value. A considerable amount of heat is transferred to the walls of the
combustion chamber. Hence, the prevailing high temperatures cause wear and sticking of
the piston rings, scoring of cylinder walls or seizure of the piston. Excessive cylinder-wall
temperature also affects the piston strength seriously. In view of the above, the inside
surface temperature of the cylinder walls should be kept in a range which will ensure
correct clearances between parts, keep the oil at correct viscosity etc. Hence, 30 to 35 per
cent of total heat supplied should be removed by the cooling system. There are two types of
cooling systems in general use:

(i) Liquid cooling

(ii) Air cooling or direct cooling.

FIGURE 1 Cooling fins on an engine

Here, our focus is on air cooling system. In air cooled IC engines extended surface is
employed in practice to cause a combined conduction and convection heat transfer from
the surface to the surroundings. While conduction takes place within the solid material, the
convection heat transfer takes place between its boundary surfaces and the surroundings.
The system enhances the total heat transfer rate between the solid surface and the
surrounding fluid. Such an extended surface is usually termed fin. In air cooled systems a
current of air is made to flow past the outside of cylinder barrel, outer surface area which
has been considerably increased by providing cooling fins as shown in Figure 1. From the
above discussion we find that about 30 to 35 per cent of total heat supplied should be
removed by the air cooling system. Hence, to design a proper cooling system the heat
removed by the air cooling system need to be computed. In order to compute the heat
removed by the air cooling system we use finite element computer program. Let us first
formulate the problem using finite element method and then conduct heat transfer analysis
of a practical air cooled spark ignition (SI) engine using a finite element computer program.

Problem Statement:

To perform heat transfer analysis of a practical air cooled SI engine by finite element
modeling and solving using finite element method computer program.

2.Formulation

2.1Mathematical modeling:

The governing equation for three-dimensional steady conduction is,

Where, is the temperature field, is the heat generation per unit volume and is
thermal conductivity (constant).
For one-dimensional case , i.e. is a function of only and the partial derivates of

w.r.t and vanishes. Thus we get,

This is the governing differential equation for one dimensional heat conduction. Let us
proceed by solving the above governing equation for cylinder wall (1-D conduction) and for
fins.
Cylinder wall (1-D conduction):

Cylinder inside
wall Temperature

FIGURE 2 Heat transfer and boundary in cylinder wall

Boundary conditions:
The boundary conditions are mainly of three kinds: specified temperature, specified heat
flux and convection. For the cylinder wall from the Figure 2 we can clearly see that
boundary conditions are specified temperature at and convection boundary

condition at .

This is the governing differential equation for one dimensional heat conduction. Here,

for the cylinder walls. Hence we get the governing equation for cylinder wall as,
If an approximate solution is desired, Galerkin's approach is to solve

For every constructed from the same basis functions as those of , with . can
be thought of as a virtual temperature change that is consistent with boundary conditions.
Thus, where is specified. is the weight function and is the residue
function. Integrating by parts, we have

Now,

At we know the inside wall temperature as show in Figure 2. This is because, we

know the mean gas temperature inside the cylinder and heat transfer coefficient through
experiments and through small computations we come to know the cylinder wall
temperature. Hence as is known at . From Figure 2 at since heat
transfer due to conduction is equal to convection we get,

Where is the wall temperature at , is the bulk ambient air temperature and is

the convective heat transfer coefficient at .

Thus we get,
On the discretized region we get,

Since our problem is one dimensional let us consider a one-dimensional line element (1-D
conduction element) which is specified by starting and ending nodes and

respectively as shown in Figure 3. The -coordinate of node and are given by and .

We define a natural or intrinsic coordinate inside the element denoted by .

FIGURE 3 Element in - and - coordinates.

From Figure 3, we see that at node and at node . The length of an element

is covered when changes from to . We use this system of coordinates in defining

shape functions, which are used in interpolating the Temperature field. Now the unknown
Temperature field at any point within an element will be interpolated by a linear
distribution with the known nodal Temperatures of the two nodes of that element.
The relation between and is,

Rearranging the above equation we get,

To implement this linear interpolation, linear shape functions and are introduced as

The Temperature field within the element can be written in terms of the nodal

displacements and as

In matrix form we can write

From the relation between and we get,

Where, is the length of each element. We have

Or

Where,

The weight function is interpolated similar to that of temperature as

Where and are nodal virtual temperatures at nodes and . Analogous to

.We have,

Further the global virtual temperature vector is denote as

On substituting the above relations we get,

Where,

is the element characteristic matrix

is the global characteristic matrix which assembled from . Suppose which is specified

by starting and ending nodes and should be placed in , should be placed

in , should be placed in and should be placed in . Similarly it should be

done for all other elements based on the element connectivity; overlapping elements are
simply added. We can denote this assembly symbolically as

The above equation should be satisfied for all with . Since as we know the

inner wall temperature . When each is chosen as , ,

it yields
Which can be solved to get , , . Since it is in steady state, heat flux is got by

taking any element which is specified by starting and ending nodes and and
computing:

1-Dimensional Fins:

FIGURE 4 Heat transfer in fins.

The analysis is made for a one-dimensional steady-state heat transfer through a fin (Figure
4) of constant thermal conductivity and without generation of thermal energy within the
fin. The energy balance on the shaded volume element in Figure 4 can be expressed as

Considering thin rectangular fins the problem can be treated as one dimensional, because
the temperature gradients along the width and across the thickness are negligible. The is
the governing differential equation for one dimensional fin is
We consider the following assumptions:

 Uniform convective heat transfer coefficient throughout the fin

 Rectangular fin
 Uniform ambient temperature throughout the fin.

 Thin fin.

The convection heat loss in the fin can be considered as a negative heat source

Where, is the perimeter of the fin and is the cross-section area of the fin.

Boundary conditions:

We present our analysis for the case when the base of the fin is held at and the tip of the
fin is insulated (heat going out of the tip is negligible). The boundary conditions are then
given by

at

at

Let be any function satisfying = 0 using same basis as . We require that

Integrating the first term by parts, we have

Since, as is known at and . After discretizing and using

the relations,

We get,

We define element characteristic matrix ( and element characteristic vector as

The equation reduces to

Or

and are assembled from element matrices and . is assembled from element

characteristic vector based on the element connectivity; overlapping elements are

simply added. We can denote this assembly symbolically as

Where n is the total no. of. Nodes, is the global characteristic matrix and is global
characteristic vector.

The above equation should hold for all satisfying . Thus, when each is chosen as

, , it yields
Which can be solved to get , , . The total heat transferred to the environment

can be obtained by summing up the element heat transfer to the environment which can
me mathematically written as

Consider an element which is specified by starting and ending nodes and . For this

element we can write as

2.2 Geometric modeling:

For both the cylinder wall and fin element, each of them is usually modeled as a one-
dimensional element, or line element, with one node at each end of the element as shown in
Figure 3. The unknown degrees of freedom i.e. the Temperature, or the primary unknowns,
are evaluated at these nodal points.

The cylinder wall is modeled as a one dimensional conduction element since the
conduction heat transfer and temperature gradient predominantly exist along the
thickness direction; and conduction heat transfer is negligible in the other two directions.
This implies . Hence, the one-dimensional element is used to model the cylinder
wall.

The fin is also modeled as dimensional conduction element with negative heat generation
to account for the convective heat transfer to the surroundings. This is because the
temperature gradients along the width and across the thickness are negligible. This implies

. Hence, the one-dimensional element is used to model the fin.

3.Heat transfer Analysis of a practical IC engine

We conduct the heat transfer analysis of a four stroke over square spark ignition engine of
cubic capacity 245 cc. The wall temperature and the ambient temperature is shown in the
below figure.

FIGURE 5 Temperature profile across the cylinder wall.

The fin dimensions are shown in the figure below. Both the fin and cylinder wall is made of
2024 T6 Al alloy .
 FIGURE 6 Fin dimensions.

3.1 Finite element modeling:

We model only one part of the wall and later we can multiply the result with no. of. such
parts to get the actual result.

Cylinder wall: Cylinder wall

Elemen Node Node j

t i
1 1 2
10m
m

1 2
The finite element model for the cylinder wall consist of one element (circled) with two
node 1 and 2 where Temperatures are defined. This is because the cylinder wall is made of
only on single material i.e. only a single value of so one element model would be
sufficient.

Fin:

1 2 3 4 5 6

Elemen Node Node j

t i
1 1 2
2 2 3
3 3 4
4 4 5
5 5 6

The finite element model for the fin consist of 5 elements (circled) with total 6 nodes and
temperature are defined at these nodes. We model only one fin later we can multiply the
result with no. of. fins to get the actual result.

3.2 Calculating convective heat transfer coefficient:

Reynolds number:
Where, is the air stream velocity which is taken as 11.1 m/s and is kinematic viscosity

of air at which is equal to . Hence we get

Using the correlation

Where, is the Nusselt number is the Prandtl number of air at which is equal to

0.7282 and is the thermal conductivity of air at which is equal to .

Hence, we get

First let us solve the finite element model for the cylinder walls

Inputs:

1. No. of. Elements = 1, No. of nodes =2 which can be clearly seen from the finite element
model for cylinder wall. The actual input to the console is shown below.

2. Element connectivity and its type. The element is of the type 1D conduction as
discussed in previous sections. The actual input of starting and ending nodes of the
element and its type to the console is shown below
 3. Node coordinates: The node coordinates can be got from the finite element model for
cylinder wall. The actual input of the nodal coordinates given to the console is
shown below

4. Element thermal conductivity and heat generation: There is no heat generation and
the thermal conductivity of the cylinder wall material is . The actual
inputs to the console is shown below

5. Boundary conditions: The boundary conditions are inner cylinder wall temperature
at node 1 and convection boundary condition at node 2(

. The boundary condition inputs to the console is shown below:

OUTPUT :
The outputs are shown for the cylinder wall

1.Nodal temperatures:

2.Element heat fluxes:

Now let us solve the finite element model for the fins

1. No. of. Elements = 5, No. of nodes =6 which can be clearly seen from the finite element
model for the fin. The actual input to the console is shown below.
2. Element connectivity and its type. The element is of the type 1D fin as discussed in
previous sections. The actual input of starting and ending nodes of the element and
its type to the console is shown below

3. Node coordinates: The node coordinates can be got from the finite element model for
the fin. The actual input of the nodal coordinates given to the console is shown
below

4. Element thermal conductivity and heat generation: There is no heat generation in the
fin as we previously discussed and the thermal conductivity of the fin material is
 . The perimeter of each element is same and it is calculated as
and we get perimeter as 0.192m . Convective heat transfer coefficient at the element
air interface is same for all elements and it is equal to . The cross
section area is also same for all elements since the fin is rectangular and can be
calculated as and substituting the values we get the element cross-section area

as 5.4 10-4 m2. The actual inputs to the console is shown below

5. Boundary conditions: There are two boundary conditions on overall. The boundary
condition of temperature gradient at the tip at the fin is zero is by default
incorporated in the formulation. Hence, we need to give explicitly one constraint
that is the base temperature of the fin as discussed previously. The base
temperature of the fin is got from the node 2 temperature of the discretized cylinder
 wall which is equal to . The actual inputs to the console is shown
below

OUTPUT :

The outputs are shown for the fin

1.Nodal temperatures:

2.Element heat fluxes:

3.3 Result verification with analytical equations:

In this section we verify the code and outputs by comparing the outputs with the analytical
solution.
Cylinder wall: For the cylinder wall, since the wall is in steady state heat flux due to the
conduction is equal to the convection heat flux in the wall-air interface. Which implies,

We have as the boundary condtion and after substituting the values for , and

length of the fin we get

Analytical heat flux is

While comparing the above analytical solution with the output of the finite element
program the accuracy of the finite element program for the nodal temperature is 100% and
for heat flux 99.997%.

Fin:

The analytical formula for computing the heat dissipated from the fin we considered is,

While comparing the above analytical solution with the output of the finite element
program the accuracy of the finite element program for heat transferred to the
environment for our finite element model of the considered fin 99.95%. The below plot
shows the Actual temperature profile and the temperature profile from the our program.
 Temperature

Distance from base of the fin (m)

FIGURE 7 Actual and Finite element program temperature variation.

3.4 Additional calculations:

The heat removed by each fin computed from the finite element program is 47.21W and
heat removed by each segment of cylinder wall is (see Figure
6)

On each wall there are 10 fins are 9 cylinder wall segments. On total there are 4 such walls
on all the four sides covering the cylinder. So the total heat removed is

The fin efficiency can be calculated as

CONCLUSION:

Heat transfer analysis of an air cooled practical spark ignition engine with fins in terms of
Heat flux, nodal Temperatures was performed by modeling it as a finite element model and
considering each fin as line element using finite element method computer program. The
code and the results were verified by comparing the results from the code with the
analytical solution. Also the fin efficiency and the total heat removed by cooling system
were computed.