Alternate Fuels and Advances in I.C.

Engines
www.iitk.ac.in/erl

Lecture-8

Thermodynamics Analysis of SI Engines

Course Instructor
Dr. Avinash Kumar Agarwal
Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
IIT Kanpur Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur
 Features of SI Engine Combustion Process
The pressure reaches a maximum after TDC but before the cylinder charge is fully burned.
The pressure continues to decreases as the cylinder volume continues to increase during the
remainder of the expansion stroke.

Fig. Cylinder pressure for five consecutive cycles in a spark-ignition engine as a function of crank
angle. Ignition timing 30-degree BTC, wide open throttle, 1044 rev/min, = 0.98

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 Features of SI Engine Combustion Process

(a) Mass fraction enflamed (b) Volume fraction enflamed

Fig. Mass fraction burned, and volume fraction enflamed for five consecutive cycles in a spark-ignition
engine as a function of crank angle. Ignition timing 30-degree BTC, wide open throttle, 1044 rev/min, =
0.98

Volume fraction enflamed curves rise more steeply than the mass fraction burned curves,
because the density of the unburned mixture ahead of the flame is about four times the density of the
burned gases behind the flame.
Some unburned mixture (25% by mass) still to burn behind the visible front to the flame: even when
the entire combustion chamber is fully enflamed.

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 Features of SI engine combustion process

Optimum spark timing depends on the following:

Rate of flame development and propagation,
Length of flame travel path across the combustion chamber, and
Flame termination process after it reaches the wall.

Empirical rules for relating the mass burning profile and maximum cylinder pressure to crank angle at
MBT timing are often used.

For example, with optimum spark timing:

Maximum pressure occurs at about 16 deg. after TDC,
Half the charge is burned at about 10 deg. after TDC.

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 Thermodynamic Analysis of SI and CI
Engine Combustion

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 Burned and Unburned Mixture States

Since the combustion occurs through a flame propagation process, the changes in state and the
motion of burned and unburned gas are much more complex than ideal cycle analysis.
During combustion, the cylinder pressure increases due to release of fuel’s chemical energy.
As each element of fuel air mixture burns, its density decreases by about a factor of 4.

During combustion phase:

 Work transfer occurs between the cylinder

Burned gases and piston.
gas
 Heat transfer occurs to the chamber walls
primarily from burnt charge.

 Volume of reaction zone where combustion

is occurring, is negligible compared to
Unburned
chamber volume.
gas
 Pressure throughout the combustion
chamber is assumed to be constant at any
crank angle.

Fig. Schematic of flame in the engine cylinder during combustion: unburned gas (U) to left of burned gas to right. A
denotes adiabatic burned-gas core, BL denotes thermal boundary layer in burned gas, W is work-transfer rate to piston, Q
is heat transfer rate to chamber walls.

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 Burned and Unburned Mixture States

Burned gas

Unburned
gas

The conditions in burned and unburned gas are determined by conservation of mass:

….(1)
Where,
V is the cylinder volume, m is the mass of cylinder contents.
v is the specific volume, xb = mass fraction burned;
subscripts u and b denote unburned and burned gas properties .

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 Burned and Unburned Mixture States
The conditions in burned and unburned gas are determined by conservation of energy -

….(2)

Where,
Uo = reference internal energy,
W = work done on piston, Burned gas

Q = heat transfer to walls.

Unburned
gas
The work and heat transfers are

Where, is the instantaneous heat-transfer rate to the chamber walls.

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 Burned and Unburned Mixture States
Assuming that the burned and unburned gases are different ideal gases, each with constant specific
heats i.e.

….(3)

Combining above equations 1 to 3, we get,

….(4)

….(5)

Where, mean temperatures of burned and unburned gases are:

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 Burned and Unburned Mixture States
Therefore, the mass fraction burned and mean temperature of burned gas can be found by solving
equation 4 and 5,

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 Burned and Unburned Mixture States

Fig. Cylinder pressure, mass

fraction burned, and gas
temperatures as functions of
crank angle during combustion.

Subscripts ‘e’ and ‘l’ denote early and late burning gas elements.
Tu, is unburned gas temperature, Tb, is burned gas temperature
A mixture element that burns right at the start of the combustion process reaches, in the absence of
mixing, a peak temperature after combustion about 400K higher than the element that burns at the
end of the combustion process.

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 Burned and Unburned Mixture States

Variation of burned
gas temperature in
the cylinder head

Fig. Burned gas temperatures measured using spectroscopic techniques through windows in the cylinder head, as a function of
cylinder pressure Temperatures measured closer to spark plug have higher values. Dashed lines show isentropic behavior.

Measurements of burned gas temperatures have been made in engines using spectroscopic
techniques through quartz windows in the cylinder head.
The solid lines marked A, B, and C are the burned gas temperatures measured by Rassweiler and
Withrow in an L-head engine, for the spark plug end (A), the middle (B), and the opposite end (C) of
the chamber, respectively.
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 Burned and Unburned Mixture States
Mass fraction burned of different fuels

Figure. represent the mass fraction burned curves obtained from measured pressure data with gasoline and methanol fuels .

With accurate P-θ records, value of final mass fraction burned should be close but lower than unity,
usually in the range 0.93- 0.98.
The difference from unity is the combustion inefficiency for lean mixtures and incomplete oxygen
utilization for rich mixtures.

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 Analysis of Cylinder Pressure Data for SI Engine
 Accurate cylinder pressure versus crank angle data can be obtained using following steps:
The correct reference pressure is used to convert the measured pressure signals to absolute
pressures;
The pressure versus crank angle (or volume) phasing is accurate to within about 0.2;
The clearance volume is estimated with sufficient accuracy;
Transducer temperature variations (which can change the transducer calibration factor) due to
the variation in wall heat flux during the engine cycle are held to a minimum.
Log p versus log V plots can be used to check the quality of cylinder pressure data.

Figure. pressure volume data from a firing SI engine on both a linear p-V and a log p –log V diagram.

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 Analysis of Cylinder Pressure Data
 The effect of heat transfer, crevices and leakage can be explicitly incorporated into cylinder pressure
data analysis using a “heat release” approach based on 1st law of thermodynamics.

….(6)

 The change in sensible energy of the charge dUs is separated form that due to change in composition
 Term δQch represents chemical energy released by combustion
 Work done is piston work and is equal to p dV.
 δQht is heat transfer to the chamber walls.

Figure. Open system boundary for combustion chamber for heat–release analysis

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 Analysis of Cylinder Pressure Data
 Assuming that Us is given by mu(T), where T is the mean charge temperature and m is the mass
within the system boundary, then

….(7)

 Substituting for dUs and dmi (= dmcr = -dm) from the above equation in eq. 6, it becomes,

….(8)

dmcr > 0 when flow is out of the cylinder into the crevice

dmcr < 0 when flow is from the crevice to the cylinder

h’ is evaluated at cylinder conditions when dmcr > 0 and at crevice conditions when dmcr < 0
use of the ideal gas law (neglecting the change in gas constant R) with Eq. 8 then gives

….(9)

*Equation 9 can be used in several ways.

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 Analysis of Cylinder Pressure Data

Net heat release: When the heat or energy release term δQch is combined with the heat-transfer
and crevice terms, the combination is termed net heat release.
It is equal to the first two terms on the right-hand side of Eq. 9. and represent the sensible energy
change and work transfer to the piston.
While heat losses during combustion are a small fraction of the fuel energy (10 to 15 percent), the
distributions of heat release and heat transfer with crank angle are different; heat transfer becomes
more important as the combustion process ends and average gas temperatures peak.
The convective heat-transfer rate to the combustion chamber walls:

Where, A is the chamber surface area,

T is the mean gas temperature,
Tw, is the mean wall temperature, and
hc, is the heat-transfer coefficient

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 Analysis of Cylinder Pressure Data

Figure. represents the results of heat release analysis showing the effects of heat transfer, crevice and combustion efficiency.

 Lowest curve is net heat release, addition of heat transfer and crevice models give chemical energy
release and the curve at the top is mass of the fuel in combustion chamber times its lower heating
value.
 The difference between final value of Qch and (mf QLHV) is equal to the combustion inefficiency.

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 Combustion Process Characterization
 Flame-development angle Δθd
The crank angle interval between spark discharge and the time when a small but significant fraction
of the cylinder mass has burned or fuel chemical energy has been released.
Usually, this fraction is 10% , though other fractions such as 1 and 5 percent have been used.

 Rapid-burning angle Δθb

The crank angle interval required to burn the bulk of the charge.
It is defined as the interval between the end of the flame development stage and the end of the flame
propagation process .
Usually, the mass fraction burned or energy release fraction of 90%.

 Overall burning angle Δθo

The duration of the overall burning process.
It is the sum of Δθd and Δθb

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 Combustion Process Characterization
 A function form often used to represent the mass fraction burned versus crank angle is the Wiebe
function :

Where,
 = crank angle
0 = start of combustion

Δθ = is the total combustion duration (xb = 0 to xb = 1)

 ‘a’ and ‘m’ are adjustable parameters.

 Varying a and m changes the shape of the curve significantly.
 Actual mass fraction burned curves have been fitted with a = 5 and m = 2.

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 Flame Structure and Speed

Experimental observations:
The combustion process in the SI engine takes
place in a turbulent flow field.
Turbulent flow field is produced by the high shear
flows set up during the intake process and
modified during compression.

Critical parameters necessary for engine

optimization are:
Engine combustion flame as it develops from the
spark discharge,
Flame speed at which it propagates across the
combustion chamber, and
Charge motion and geometry.

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 Flame Structure and Speed

𝑚= 𝑚𝑢 +𝑚𝑏

And the ideal gas law:

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 Flame structure and speed
Thus, the plot of xb , against yb , has a universal form, as shown in the figure below. This curve is an
important aid in interpreting flame geometry information.

xr is residual mass fraction

Figure : Relation between mass fraction burned and volume fraction burned

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 Thanks

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