Instantaneous heat flux measurements have shown that, in the expansion stroke, heat can flow from the wall into the combustion chamber, even though the bulk gas temperature is higher than the wall temperature. This unexpected result has been explained by modelling of the unsteady flows and heat conduction within the gas side thermal boundary layer. This modelling has shown that these unsteady effects change the phasing of the heat flux, compared with that which would be predicted by a simple convective correlation based on the bulk gas properties. Twelve fast response thermocouples have been installed throughout the combustion chamber of a pent roof, four-valve, single-cylinder spark ignition engine. Instantaneous surface temperatures and the adjacent steady reference temperatures were measured, and the surface heat fluxes were calculated for motoring and firing at different speeds, throttle settings and ignition timings. To make comparisons with these measurements, the combustion system was modelled with computational fluid dynamics (CFD). This was found to give very poor agreement with the experimental measurements, so this led to a review of the assumptions used in boundary layer modelling. The discrepancies were attributed to assumptions in the law of the wall and Reynolds analogy, so instead the energy equation was solved within the boundary layer. The one-dimensional energy conservation equation has been linearized and normalized and solved in the gas side boundary layer for a motored case. The results have been used for a parametric study, and the individual terms of the energy equation are evaluated for their contribution to the surface heat flux. It was clearly shown that the cylinder pressure changes cause a phase shift of the heat flux forward in time.

The present work addresses the coupling of a flamelet database, to a low-Mach approximation of the NavierStokes equations using scalar controlling variables. The model is characterized by the chemistry tabulation based on laminar premixed flamelets in combination with an optimal choice of the reaction progress variable, which is determined based on the computational singular perturbation (CSP) method. The formulation of the model focuses on turbulent premixed flames taking into account the effect of heat losses, but it is easily extended to partially premixed and non-premixed regimes. The model is designed for applications in both, Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) as well as large-eddy simulations (LES) and results for the two methods are compared. A priori analysis of the database is presented to demonstrate the influence of the reaction progress definition and the chemistry tabulation is validated against a one-dimensional premixed laminar flame. The validation of the turbulent case is performed using a turbulent premixed confined jet flame subject to strong heat losses, in which the model shows a good overall performance.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract