Thermodynamic analysis of SI engine combustion process

Thermodynamic analysis of SI engine combustion process

Burned and Unburned Mixture States

The gas pressure, temperature, and density change as a result of changes in volume due to piston motion. During combustion, the cylinder pressure increases due to the release of the fuel's chemical energy. As each element of fuel-air mixture bums, its density decreases by about a factor of four. This combustion-produced gas expansion compresses the unburned mixture ahead of the flame and displaces it toward the combustion chamber walls. The combustion-produced gas expansion also compresses those parts of the charge which have already burned, and displaces them back toward the spark plug. During the combustion process, the unburned gas elements move away from the spark plug; following combustion, individual gas elements move back toward the spark plug. Further, elements of the unburned mixture which burn at different times have different pressures and temperatures just prior to combustion, and therefore end up at different states after combustion. The thermodynamic state and composition of the burned gas is, therefore, non-uniform. A first law analysis of the spark-ignition engine combustion process enables us to quantify these gas states. Work transfer occurs between the cylinder gases and the piston (to the gas before TC; to the piston after TC). Heat transfer occurs to the chamber walls, primarily from the burned gases. At the temperatures and pressures typical of spark-ignition engines it is a reasonable approximation to assume that the volume of the reaction zone where combustion is actually occurring is a negligible fraction of the chamber volume even though the thickness of-the turbulent flame may not be negligible compared with the chamber dimensions (see Sec. 9.3.2). With normal engine operation, at any point in time or crank angle, the pressure throughout the cylinder is close to uniform. The conditions in the burned and unburned gas are then determined by conservation of mass:

and conservation of energy:

where V is the cylinder volume, m is the mass of the cylinder contents, o is the specific volume, xb is the mass fraction burned, Uo is the internal energy of the cylinder contents at some reference point 80, u is the specific internal energy, W is the work done on the piston, and Q is the heat transfer to the walls. The subscripts u and b denote unburned and burned gas properties, respectively. The work and heat transfers are

where 0 is the instantaneous heat-transfer rate to the chamber walls. To proceed further, models for the thermodynamic properties of the burned and unburned gases are required. Several categories of models are described in Chap. 4. Accurate calculations of the state of the cylinder gases require an equilibrium model (or good approximation to it) for the burned gas and an ideal gas mixture model (of frozen composition) for the unburned gas. However, useful illustrative results can be obtained by assuming that the burned and unburned gases are different ideal gases, each with constant specific heat.