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Piston Bowl Optimization for Single Cylinder Diesel Engine Using CFD

Conference Paper · February 2016

DOI: 10.4271/2016-28-0107

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Piston Bowl Optimization for Single Cylinder 2016-28-0107

Diesel Engine Using CFD Published 02/01/2016

Saravanan Subramanian
Allison Transmission India Pvt Ltd.

Balamurugan Rathinam
Renault Nissan Tech. Business Centre I

J Isaac JoshuaRamesh Lalvani

Saveetha Engineering College

Kandaswamy Annamalai
Madras Institute of Technology

CITATION: Subramanian, S., Rathinam, B., Lalvani, J., and Annamalai, K., "Piston Bowl Optimization for Single Cylinder Diesel
Engine Using CFD," SAE Technical Paper 2016-28-0107, 2016, doi:10.4271/2016-28-0107.
Copyright © 2016 SAE International

Abstract important in internal combustion engines. Moreover, the

Automotive Diesel engines delivers more energy than gasoline because
it burns the fuel more efficiently by compression process. Diesel engine
piston plays an important role in delivering more power with the same
volume of air-fuel mixture. To achieve this we need to have a better
swirl (rotation of air inside the cylinder along the cylinder axis) to
ignite the fuel by proper air-fuel ratio. In this project we target to
improve the swirl motion for the proper mixing of fuel and air inside
the combustion chamber by making tangential groves on the piston
bowl. Different bowl designs are targeted to compare and analyse the
effects of piston bowl by using CFD code (Commercial CFD code for
engine specific).The intake port, combustion chamber roof, cylinder
liner, piston bowl, intake valves and exhaust vales are considered for
the 3D CFD modelling. The in-cylinder flow are measured numerically
on different planes at various crank angles to see the effect of air
motion caused by the tangential swirl groves created on the piston
bowl. Different types of piston bowls by varying the number of groves,
increasing the width of the groves are studied numerically and
compared to identify the better swirl generating piston bowl.
Keywords
Air motion, CFD, Piston crown, Swirl, Squish, Converge
Introduction
A main goal of an internal combustion engine is to exhibit good
performance while meeting the stringent emission standards. In the
past decades, diesel engines have been greatly improved in terms of
the engine efficiency and pollutant emissions and this trend will
continue. In recent years, demanding emission requirements were
established by governing authorities. In order to meet those
requirements, the outcomes of the combustion process are very
combustion is affected by the in-cylinder air motion. It is well
known that the intake process governs many important aspects of
the air motion within the cylinder. The structures of the in-cylinder
flow are complex. Therefore, a thorough understanding of the
in-cylinder air motion is necessary to improve the performance of
internal combustion engines. There are two parameters that can be
used to characterize the in-cylinder air motion, i.e. the swirl and the
tumble. The swirl is described as the rotational air motion with
respect to the cylinder axis. The swirl is generated during the air
induction into the cylinder by either directing the flow into the
cylinder tangentially or pre-swirling the incoming flow with helical
ports. The rotation which occurs with respect to the axis
perpendicular to the cylinder axis is called tumble.
Diesel engines are mainly used in industrial, transport and
agricultural applications due to their high efficiency and reliability.
Diesel engines are normally encountered with combustion noise,
engine vibration and the problem of nitrogen oxides (NOx),
particulate matter (PM) trade-off emissions. Nowadays, clean diesel
engine technologies have been introduced and widely used such as
fuel and additives, in-cylinder technology, lubricant oil and exhaust
gas after-treatment devices. In in-cylinder technology piston
modification is one of the efficient strategy for reducing emissions
from diesel engines. The in-cylinder air [1], [2], [3] and fuel motion
is one of the important factor for controlling the combustion process
in compression ignition engine. It improves the air and fuel mixing
and burning rate of the fuel. It is essential to achieve a better spatial
circulation of the injected fuel throughout the space to obtain a better
combustion with reduced emissions. The geometry of the combustion
chamber, fuel injection and air flows are the most important factor to
achieve a better combustion.
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Air Motion and Combustion Chamber Geometry Table 1. Dimensions of the piston bowl and grooves

The air motion inside the cylinder greatly influences the performance
ant it is one of the major factor that control the fuel-air mixing in
diesel engines. Air-fuel mixing influences combustion, performance
of the engine and emission level. The air motion inside the cylinder
mainly depends on manifold design, inlet and exhaust valve lift
profiles and combustion chamber configuration. The initial in-
cylinder intake flow pattern is defined by the intake process, and then
it is modified during the compression process. The shape of the bowl
in the piston [1] and the intake system, control the turbulence level
and air-fuel mixing of the DI diesel engine. The variation of shape of
intake system, shape of piston cavity lead to a change in the A=> HCC => Hemispherical combustion chamber
distribution of air flow pattern inside the engine cylinder. B=> HCC SCOOP => Hemispherical combustion chamber scoop
C=> TCC SCOOP => Toroidal combustion chamber
Piston Shape Description D=> SCC SCOOP => Shallow depth combustion chamber
E=> HCC GROOVE => Hemispherical combustion chamber Groove
The engine considered for this study is a naturally aspirated
engine and the combustion chamber of the engine is considered as Role of CFD Analysis In IC Engine
flat type. Five different piston bowls were considered for the study
CFD can be used for many applications in IC engine which includes
to see the swirl ratio during suction and compression stroke. In the
past many research has been carried out in the topic of squish of • Aerodynamic simulation to predict swirl and tumble
in-cylinder flow, it is expected that slanted piston crown [4], [5], • Spray simulation to predict the penetration length of the spray
[6] facilitate combustion at the end of compression stroke by from the nozzle [9] and the evaluation of droplet diameters &
providing in cylinder swirl, also combustion at the end of the mass distribution
compression stroke reduces the possibility of knocking. Therefore
• Combustion simulation to predict the maximum cylinder
hemispherical bowl is replaced by a diverged crescent shaped
pressure and the heat release rate
groove which actually possess slant groove which helps in
inducing air for better swirl when the piston nears TDC and also it There are very few commercial codes which has been used widely in the
is proved the grooves improves structural stability [7]. The newly research and industrial application. Converge is one of the emerging
designed contour is expected to have high in-cylinder swirl and CFD tool very specific to engine applications. For this piston bowl
turbulence at the top dead centre in compression stroke. Before optimisation we have attempted with the help of the converge tool. We
making a prototype of the piston, different designs of piston aimed to predict the effect of swirl of different piston shapes using CFD
model is tested in the cylinder for the effectiveness of making analysis. Because swirl is the one which is responsible for effective
swirl inside the cylinder. mixing of air and the fuel inside the cylinder for diesel engines.

Piston Structure and Modelling Modeling and Meshing

The standard piston used has a diameter of 87.5mm. The piston is Model Building and Part Identification
made up of Aluminium material with the alloying elements of The various piston shapes has been developed in CATIA V5. The
Silicon, Iron, Manganese, Magnesium, Copper and Nickel. A simulation model includes the piston bowl, cylinder liner, combustion
hemispherical piston shape and toroidal pistons [8] are considered chamber roof, intake & exhaust valves, intake port, intake pipe,
as the basic shapes and in which the grooves were added exhaust port and exhaust pipe.
tangentially and vertically to see the effect of swirl because of
these orifices on the top landing of the piston bowls. The piston
was modelled in such a way to facilitate crevice flow during
compression stroke. Figure 1 shows the different piston designs
considered for the study.

Figure 2. Parts of simulation domain

Figure 1. Piston shape with and without grooves

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cell size. Figure 5 is the 2D sectional view of the volume mesh which
shows the distribution or refinement of the volume mesh inside the
fluid domain from the intake to the exhaust boundary faces.

Figure 3. Intake and Exhaust pipe dimensions

In order to develop the flow effectively (to have fully developed flow)
and also to avoid the fluid instabilities or fluctuations which causes
during CFD simulation the intake and exhaust ports are extended Figure 5. 2D sectional view of the volume mesh
(refer figure 2). In the intake port side a hemispherical shaped fluid Figure 6 shows the magnified view of the cylinder and the valve
domain called “Hemispherical plenum” is created. Similarly the regions. To capture the flow physics near the walls of the cylinder and
exhaust port is extended by a length of 20 times of its hydraulic the intake pipe the walls has been refined with a cell size of 0.5mm.
diameter (refer figure 3. To reduce the simulation time an optimum This very refinement of cells around the valves, liner, piston bowl and
length has been considered at the inlet and the outlet port. the cylinder head helps to discretise the velocity of air and the
corresponding the swirls generated during suction and compression
Surface Mesh
stroke of the engine.
The surface of the fluid domain is meshed with the triangulated mesh
using ANSA software. The mesh length is defined as 0.5mm to the
surface wherever small features are noticed and 5 mm length has been
used to the faces wherever the surface is simply planar. The moving
parts like valve stem meshed with 0mm length so that it moves for the
varying valve lift (o to 9.5 mm) and the cylinder liner are also meshed
with 0 mm length which makes the piston to move from TDC to BDC
and vice versa. Figure 4 shows the distribution of triangulated mesh
over the fluid domain to capture the geometrical features.

Figure 6. Magnified view of cylinder region

Table 2 shows the discretization of mesh sizes of different parts and

its corresponding cell length.
Table 2. Different parts and its cell size

Figure 4. Surface mesh using ANSA

Volume Mesh Generation Engine Specification

With reference to the surface mesh created using ANSA the volume The engine used for the CFD simulation is a two valve flat roof
mesh is generated in CONVERGE during simulation. The volume naturally aspirate diesel engine. Table 3 shows the engine details and
mesh is comprised of 90% of pure hexahedral cells and 10% of the maximum valve lift details of the engine.
trimmed cells and tetrahedral cells so as to capture the surface Table 3. Engine
geometry. To save the computational time the fluid domain is
discretized with different mesh sizes [10], [11] (coarser to finer
wherever is necessary). The cylinder region and the intake port are the
important air flow regions to visualize and develop the swirl hence
these regions are meshed with 1mm cells. The region far away from the
cylinder like intake plenum, intake pipe and also the non-interested
region like exhaust port and exhaust pipe are meshed with 2 and 5 mm
spoceianfcti
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Boundary and Initial Conditions

The inlet face is defined as absolute pressure boundary condition with
an inlet pressure of 0.895e+005 Pa. The outlet face is defined as the
pressure boundary condition and open to atmosphere. The moving
surfaces like valves, cylinder liner and piston bowl are defined as
wall boundary condition and the other faces of the fluid domain are
defined as fixed wall boundary with a temperature of 360K. The
turbulence intensity as 5 % and the turbulence length scale as 1mm.

Table 4. Boundary condition used for simulation

Figure 7. Pressure profile vs crank angle

Numerical Setup
Table 5 shows the numerical parameters used in converge for transient
aerodynamic simulation. Since the simulation is considered as transient
the air inside the cylinder during suction and compression stroke changes
Figure 8. Turbulence kinetic energy vs crank angle
its density with respect to the volume hence the flow is considered as
compressible flow. The numerical method and the scheme used for the
simulation are implicit method and upwind scheme for better stability.
For better mixing of air with the fuel requires high turbulence, it was
observed that RNG Keps turbulence model is widely used to resolve the
swirl and the same has been considered for the study.
Table 5. Numerical setup used for simulation

Figure 9. Swirl ratio vs crank angle

Figure 9 shows the swirl ratio profile identified before TDC at the end of
the compression stroke. The results revealed that the TCC profile with
scoop has got maximum swirl ratio and the HCC has got the least swirl
ratio. The order of the swirl ratio from the CFD results are as follows:

Figure 10 shows the 2D sectional images taken in the cylinder for

Result and Discussion
As stated earlier, this study is aimed to predict the piston shape which
gives more swirl at the end of compression stroke. The piston which
gives more swirl will be taken further for fabrication. The pressure
profiles, turbulence kinetic energy and the swirl ratio of various
piston shapes are compared to analyse the results. Figure 7 shows the
pressure profiles of different piston shapes. The results show no
deviation in maximum cylinder pressure. This is mainly due to the
same compression ratio and the same engine specification used for
simulation. Figure 8 shows the turbulence kinetic energy with respect
to crank angle. The results show minimal changes in the profile due
to the effect of the piston shapes. However no major variation
observed in the turbulence profile.
different piston profiles, the images are taken at different crank angle
positions during suction and compression stroke of the engine. The
images are mainly represents the suction stroke to see the air motion
inside the cylinder and its re-circulation inside the cylinder with the
effect of piston shape. High velocity fields were noticed at the port
entrance and the cylinder liners of the intake side when the piston is at
80 degree crank angle.
The flow gets diverted towards the exhaust side when the piston reaches
the bottom dead center. The effect of the piston shape and the provision
for diverting the flow has assisted the flow to maintain the momentum of
turbulence which is required to create high swirl at TDC. As noticed in
the swirl ratio the TCC piston shape with scoop design has showed high
velocity which is responsible for high turbulence and swirl at different
crank angle positions when compared to the other designs.
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Figure 10. Swirl ratio vs crank angle

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Figure 11. Sectional plane -velocity profiles of different piston shapes at TDC
Figure 12. Sectional plane with the bowl shape at TDC
Figure 11 shows the sectional image to represent the swirl regions
of different piston shapes taken at TDC. Figure 12 shows the
behavior of air motion at the end of compression stroke. From
figure 11 & 12 it clearly depicts the TCC Scoop has high swirl and
also has high velocity region. Similarly as mentioned before the
HCC has revealed less swirl when compared to the other piston
profiles from the CFD results.
Conclusion
1. Numerical simulation is developed to predict the swirl ratio to
identify the better design of piston shapes.
2. The CFD results have got good stabilization with the mesh
range of 0.5 mm to 5mm cells.
3. The pressure profiles have no impact on piston shapes due to the
same compression ratio and engine configuration.
4. The turbulence kinetic energy has showed minimal change in its
behavior for different piston shapes.
5. The swirl ratio profiles along with the CFD results has helped to
identify the piston shape/ piston bowl which initiates more swirl
required for better combustion.
6. The CFD results has supported to identify the piston shape
which is good in terms of in-cylinder motion with the following
order: TCC scoop >SCC scoop>HCC scoop>HCC groove>HCC
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