STUDY ON THE IN-CYLINDER FLOW CHARACTERISTICS OF AN SI ENGINE USING PIV

The tumble or swirl flow is used to promote mixing of air and fuel in the cylinder and to enlarge turbulent intensity in the end of the compression stroke. Since the in-cylinder flow is a kind of transient state with rapid flow variation, which is non-steady state flow, the tumble or swirl flow has not been analyzed sufficiently whether they are applicable to combustion theoretically. In the investigation of intake turbulent characteristics using PIV method, typical flow characteristics were figured out by SCV configurations. An engine installed SCV had higher vorticity and turbulent strength by fluctuation and turbulent kinetic energy than a baseline engine, especially near the cylinder wall and lower part of the cylinder. Above all, the engine with SCV 8 was superior to the others in aspect of vorticity and turbulent strength. For energy dissipation, a baseline engine had much higher energy loss than the engine installed SCV because flow impinged on the cylinder wall. Consequently, as swirl flow was added to existing tumble flow, it was found that fluctuation increased and flow energy was conserved effectively through the experiment.