Turbine Swirling Device Effect on LPG-H2 Engine In-Cylinder Flow Motion at Intake Stroke

The main issue of internal combustion (IC) engines is efficiency. Engine inlet systems should be carefully designed to provide an optimum flow to the cylinder. Inlet manifold design is one of the ways to increase efficiency. This study focuses on improving the inlet system of an LPG-H2 fueled engine by adding a static inclined blade turbine. It is a horizontal rotational axis turbine with four blades evenly distributed with an angle of inclination of 35°. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations are used in order to capture the in-cylinder flow motion and its influence on the flow characteristics. The method is assessed by application to flow calculations in the intake manifold for 3000 rpm engine speed. The percentage of supplied Hydrogen with LPG is equal to 20% in volume. The simulation results of in-cylinder turbulence kinetic energy (TKE), velocity and swirl motion were presented and discussed. Numerical results reveal significant improvements in the in-cylinder flow velocity, in-cylinder swirl motion and turbulent characteristics using an inlet system with a static swirling turbine (SST). Hence, this research found that by using a static turbine, we can improve the in-cylinder flow characteristics of the CI engine running with the LPG-20%H2 blend. 

Keywords: Engine, Flow, Hydrogen, In-cylinder, Inlet system, LPG, Swirl device, Static turbine