Elias Baum

High-speed phosphor thermometry.

Phosphor thermometry is a semi-invasive surface temperature measurement technique utilising the luminescence properties of doped ceramic materials. Typically, these phosphor materials are coated onto the object of interest and are excited by a short UV laser pulse. Up to now, primarily Q-switched laser systems with repetition rates of 10 Hz were employed for excitation. Accordingly, this diagnostic tool was not applicable to resolve correlated temperature transients at time scales shorter than 100 ms. This contribution reports on the first realisation of a high-speed phosphor thermometry system employing a highly repetitive laser in the kHz regime and a fast decaying phosphor. A suitable material was characterised regarding its temperature lifetime characteristic and its measurement precision. Additionally, the influence of laser power on the phosphor coating was investigated in terms of heating effects. A demonstration of this high-speed technique has been conducted inside the thermally highly transient system of an optically accessible internal combustion engine. Temperatures have been measured with a repetition rate of 6 kHz corresponding to one sample per crank angle degree at 1000 rpm.

On the turbulent flow in piston engines: Coupling of statistical theory quantities and instantaneous turbulence

Planar particle image velocimetry (PIV) and tomographic PIV (TPIV) measurements are utilized to analyze turbulent statistical theory quantities and the instantaneous turbulence within a single-cylinder optical engine. Measurements are performed during the intake and mid-compression stroke at 800 and 1500 RPM. TPIV facilitates the evaluation of spatially resolved Reynolds stress tensor (RST) distributions, anisotropic Reynolds stress invariants, and instantaneous turbulent vortical structures. The RST analysis describes distributions of individual velocity fluctuation components that arise from unsteady turbulent flow behavior as well as cycle-to-cycle variability (CCV). A conditional analysis, for which instantaneous PIV images are sampled by their tumble center location, reveals that CCV and turbulence have similar contributions to RST distributions at the mean tumble center, but turbulence is dominant in regions peripheral to the tumble center. Analysis of the anisotropic Reynolds stress invariants reve...

Evaluation of the flame propagation within an SI engine using flame imaging and LES

This work shows experiments and simulations of the fired operation of a spark ignition engine with port-fuelled injection. The test rig considered is an optically accessible single cylinder engine specifically designed at TU Darmstadt for the detailed investigation of in-cylinder processes and model validation. The engine was operated under lean conditions using iso-octane as a substitute for gasoline. Experiments have been conducted to provide a sound database of the combustion process. A planar flame imaging technique has been applied within the swirl- and tumble-planes to provide statistical information on the combustion process to complement a pressure-based comparison between simulation and experiments. This data is then analysed and used to assess the large eddy simulation performed within this work. For the simulation, the engine code KIVA has been extended by the dynamically thickened flame model combined with chemistry reduction by means of pressure dependent tabulation. Sixty cycles have been simulated to perform a statistical evaluation. Based on a detailed comparison with the experimental data, a systematic study has been conducted to obtain insight into the most crucial modelling uncertainties.