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Turbulent flow inside the cylinder of a Diesel engine — an experimental investigation using hot wire anemometer

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Abstract

This paper describes the measurement of mean velocity and turbulence intensity using hot-wire anemometry inside the cylinder of a Diesel engine under motoring (non-firing) conditions. The effects of engine speed and compression ratio on mean velocity and turbulence intensity have been studied. In addition, turbulence scales have also been evaluated using auto-correlation function and power spectrum which are obtained from fluctuating velocity. The measurements were carried out at 4 different locations inside the piston cavity. Mean velocity and turbulence intensity are found to increase with speed. Increase in compression ratio has significantly increased the mean velocity at all crank angles. The main feature of this investigation is that the experiments have been conducted at higher compression ratios and a relatively high speed using a single high temperature straight wire probe.

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Abbreviations

A :

constant

B :

constant

D :

hot-wire diameter

F(f) :

normalized one-dimensional energy spectral density function

f :

frequency

i :

current through the hot-wire

k :

thermal conductivity of air at any temperature

k 0 :

thermal conductivity of air at reference temperature

L :

hot-wire length

L t :

macro or integral time scale of turbulence

L x :

macro or integral length scale of turbulence

N :

number of cycles

Nu :

Nusselt number

n :

constant

R :

hot-wire resistance

Re :

Reynolds number

R (τ):

auto-correlation coefficient

T :

period of measurement and temperature

T 0 :

reference temperature

T g :

cylinder gas temperature

T w :

hot-wire temperature

U :

instantaneous velocity

U :

mean velocity

u I :

fluctuating velocity

u′ :

turbulence intensity

μ t :

absolute viscosity of air at any temperature

μ 0 :

absolute viscosity of air at reference temperature

θ :

engine crank angle

τ:

correlation time

λ t :

micro-time scale of turbulence

λ x :

micro-length scale of turbulence

References

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Subramaniyam, S., Ganesan, V., Rao, P.S. et al. Turbulent flow inside the cylinder of a Diesel engine — an experimental investigation using hot wire anemometer. Experiments in Fluids 9, 167–174 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00187418

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