The Effect of In-Cylinder Turbulence on Lean, Premixed, Spark-Ignited Engine Performance

The intensity and structure of in-cylinder turbulence is known to have a significant effect on internal combustion engine performance. Changes in flow structure and turbulence intensity result in changes to the rate of heat release, cylinder wall heat rejection, and cycle-to-cycle combustion variability. This paper seeks to quantify these engine performance consequences and identify fundamental similarities across a range of high-speed, medium-bore, lean-burn, spark-ignited reciprocating engines. In-cylinder turbulence was manipulated by changing the extent of intake port-induced swirl as well as varying the level of piston-generated turbulence. The relationship between in-cylinder turbulence and engine knock is also discussed. Increasing in-cylinder turbulence generally reduces combustion duration, but test results reveal that increasing swirl beyond a critical point can cause a lengthening of burn durations and greatly reduced engine performance. This critical swirl level is related to the extent of small-scale, piston-generated turbulence present in the cylinder. Increasing in-cylinder turbulence generally leads to reduced cycle-to-cycle variability and increased detonation margin (DM). The overall change in thermal efficiency was dependent on the balance of these factors and wall heat transfer, and varied depending on the operational constraints for a given engine and application. Single cylinder engine test data, supported with three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) results, are used to demonstrate and explain these basic combustion engine principles.