CFD Aided Development of Gasoline Engines

Due to recent improvements on combustion modeling, three-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tools have become essential in aiding in the engine development. They allow the understanding of basic combustion phenomena and help to optimize various parameters of a pre-existing combustion system or to design a combustion chamber from scratch. Combustion systems become more and more complex in order to address the conflicting demands based on more stringent emission standards and customer desire for “fun-to-drive” vehicles, i.e. higher torque and power output. Therefore ignition, combustion and pollutant models are constantly evolving in order to keep CFD in pace with engine innovations. Such a close follow-up of IFP’s CFD tools enables 3D computations to contribute actively in all IFP engine research projects. This paper describes the contribution of 3D combustion modeling to the development of gasoline engines, from conventional PFI or DISI turbo-charging (downsizing with power increase) to high power output (Formula One) applications.