MANIFOLD AND PORT DESIGN FOR BALANCED FLOW AND INCREASED TURBULENCE IN A TWO-STROKE, OPPOSED PISTON ENGINE

Two-stroke, opposed piston engines have gained recent attention for their improved thermal efficiency relative to the conventional inline or V-configuration. One advantage of two-stroke, opposed piston engines is a reduction in heat losses since there is no cylinder head. Another advantage is improved gas exchange via uniflow scavenging since the exhaust and intake ports may be located near bottom dead center of the exhaust and intake pistons, respectively. One challenge with the design of two-stroke engines is promoting turbulence within the cylinder. Turbulence is important for mixing air and fuel in the cylinder and for increasing flame speed during combustion.

This work investigates the flow and turbulence through two-stroke, opposed piston engines using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Specifically, the role of intake manifold and intake port geometry on turbulence within the cylinder was investigated by systematically modifying the engine geometry. Turbulence was then quantified using three metrics: circulation around the cylinder axis (swirl), circulation normal to the cylinder axis (tumble), and volume average turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) within the cylinder.

Increasing the swirl angle from 0 degrees to 10 degrees increased the in-cylinder swirl by a factor of 3. Increasing the swirl angle also increased the volume average TKE by a range of 7.6% to 36.5% across the three cylinders of the engine. A reverse tilt angle of 15 degrees increased tumble circulation near the piston face but decreased tumble circulation by a factor of 3 near the center of the cylinder. The next step for research on this would be to apply more geometric manipulations to the manifold of the swirl engine design to balance the mass flow rate for each port. Following the redesign of the manifold the next step is to perform a dynamic CFD test to verify the mass flow has been balanced under a dynamic scenario.