Shuanlu Zhang

Scavenge flow analysis of opposed- piston two-stroke engine based on dynamic characteristics

Opposed-piston two-stroke engine has been proposed by Beijing Institute of Technology to improve power density and complete machine balance relative to conventional engines. In order to study opposed-piston two-stroke engine scavenging flow, a scavenging system was configured using a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics model effectively coupled to experiments. The boundary conditions are obtained through one-dimensional working process simulation results and experiments. As the opposed-piston relative dynamic characteristics of opposed-piston two-stroke engine depend on different design and operating parameters including the opposed-piston motion phase difference and crank-connecting rod ratio, a numerical simulation program was built using MATLAB/Simulink to define opposed-piston motion profiles based on equivalent crank angle of opposed crank-connecting rod mechanism. The opposed-piston motion phase difference only affects scavenging timing while crank-connecting rod ratio affects scavenging timing and duration. Scavenging timing and duration are the main factors which affect scavenging performance. The results indicate that a match of opposed-piston motion phase difference and crank-connecting rod ratio has the potential to achieve high scavenging and trapping efficiency with a right flow in cylinder.

Opposed-Piston Two-Stroke Diesel Engine Scavenging System Structural Optimization Based on GA-SVM

Opposed-Piston Two-Stroke (OP2S) diesel engines have been successfully used in many applications because of its high power efficiency. Uniform scavenging is used on OP2S diesel engines. Different from conventional diesel engine exchanging systems, intake ports and exhaust ports are located at each sides of the cylinder as OP2S scavenging system. A scavenging system optimization method, Genetic Algorithm-Support Vector Machine (GA-SVM), which employs Indicated Mean Effective Pressure (IMEP) as optimization goal is presented. The combinations of five key parameters including the width and length of intake and exhaust ports and the crank asymmetric angle are designed. All these combinations are calculated by GT-Power. The predicting model of OP2S diesel engine`s IMEP is built based on the 1D results. After verifying the accuracy of the predicting model, the optimized parameters are found. The results illustrate: using 1-D simulation coupled GA-SVM to optimize scavenging parameters in OP2S diesel engines is a rapid and effective method. The optimized IMEP is 12.86 bar. This paper presents some guidelines in the further OP2S diesel engines research. Introduction The opposed-piston two-stroke engine (OP2S) concept came into being in 1850`s. Wittig, a German engineer, designed and manufactured the world`s first coal gas fuel opposed-piston engine [1].From then on, many novel designs were brought out on aircrafts, marines and vehicles such as TS-3 engine manufactured by British Rootes company and 6-TD engine from Ukraine. However, rigid emission legislations slowed down the development of opposed-piston engines after 1970`s. In recent years, with the improvement of modern analytical tools, materials, and fuel supply system, engines from FEV, EcoMotor and Achates Power company have performed well in many fields [2,3,4,5,6]. OP2S draw more and more attention once again because of its simple, lightweight, high efficiency and high power density [7]. In OP2S scavenging system, two pistons reciprocate opposite to each other in a common cylinder, piston port timings are controlled by two pistons. With this structural design, the need for cylinder head and valve mechanism are eliminated. In order to achieve better scavenging performance, larger ports area is wanted. However, according to the research by Peter Hofbauer [8], although larger intake and exhaust ports area can achieve better scavenging performance, shorter compression and expansion processes are inevitable. This will lead to the decrease of power efficiency. Zhenyu Zhang [9] also found larger crank asymmetric angle is benefit to the scavenging efficiency meanwhile compression ratio and expansion ratio decrease along with the increase of the crank asymmetric angle. This is also unfavorable to the development of engine performance. Therefore, in optimizing OP2S scavenging process, only taking scavenging efficiency into account is unreasonable. Thermal efficiency should also be taken into account. With the consideration of this, IMEP is selected as optimizing goal. In engine scavenging system optimization area, two simulation approaches are widely used. The first one is Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method using such as AVL-Fire, Star-CD. The CFD method can model the scavenging process with complex geometries. However, its calculation time is very long. This is unfavorable in initial engine designing. The second one is a predictive simulation method which is required to determine basic engine parameters in order to shorten the development time [10]. GT-Power is always the priority choice. Compared with detailed simulation, the 1D simulation has simpler model and it has lower demands with calculation. So 1-D simulation 154 This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Copyright