Analysis and Visualization of Thermal Stresses in Exhaust Manifolds

Exhaust manifolds are used in many areas, such as turbocharged diesel engines. The purpose of an exhaust manifold is to direct the hot gases from the combustion chamber to the turbocharger or an acceptable exhaust outlet. The high gas temperatures in the exhaust manifolds lead to very high thermal stresses. This research focuses on the integration of computational fluid dynamics (CFD), Finite Element Analysis (FEA), and virtual reality visualization to analyze and visualize thermal stresses of manifolds for better understanding and better decision-making for design, troubleshooting, and optimization of manifolds. CFD is used to obtain the temperature distribution in the exhaust manifold. Using the temperature data FEA is then performed to determine the thermal stresses in the exhaust manifold. Using the results of the FEA analysis a 3-d virtual model is built to visualize the thermal stresses in the exhaust manifold. Methodologies have been developed for such integration and applied to industrial manifolds. Results will be presented in detail in the paper.