JSAE 20139103 / SAE 2013-32-9103

CFD Modeling of a Turbo-charged Common-rail Diesel Engine

Guan-Jhong Wang, Chia-Jui Chiang, Yu-Hsuan Su
National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan

Yong-Yuan Ku
Automotive Research and Testing Center, Taiwan

Copyright 2013 SAE Japan and Copyright 2013 SAE International

ABSTRACT
In this study, a single cylinder diesel engine model is built
via the ANSYS FLUENT CFD solver to simulate the
phenomenon during each stroke. The initial conditions and
boundary conditions are set based on experimental data
obtained from a turbo-charged common-rail diesel engine
developed by Mitsubishi. The variables that can be observed
from the CFD model include cylinder pressure, gas velocity,
cylinder temperature, fuel particle tracks, and mass fraction
of cylinder gas components. The simulation results display
the effects of the fuel injection timings on the combustion
heat release process, cylinder pressure and cylinder
temperature at different engine operation conditions. The
pure diesel (C10H22) is adopted in this simulation study. In
the FLUENT setup, k epsilon is used in the viscous model,
and the autoignition model is used to simulate the
spontaneous combustion. The flow field obtained from
simulation results such as the tumbling motion can be used
to explain the macroscopic phenomena observed from
experiment results. This research also discusses the effect of
fuel injection timing on the cylinder pressure. Results show
that as the fuel injection timing advances, the combustion
phasing advances, resulting in higher peak cylinder pressure
and peak cylinder temperature.

INTRODUCTION
With the excellent fuel efficiency and high torque output,
diesel engines are particularly suitable for heavy-duty
vehicle applications. However, diesel engines also suffer
from the undesired byproduct of pollutants such as
particulate matter (PM), NOx, CO2, CO, and HC existing in
the combustion exhausts. Recent progress in actuators such
as the common-rail fuel injection system not only increases
the engine power output but also reduces the emission of
exhaust pollutants. In an effort to understand the mechanism
of the common-rail diesel engine combustion and to achieve
optimized engine performance and reduce emissions, a
computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of a diesel
engine is constructed in this paper. The CFD simulation
allows us to investigate the combustion process of diesel
engine after compression ignition and may cut down on the
number of costly in-situ experiments. In addition, more
design parameters can be varied in simulation, the design
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cycle can be shortened, and product development cost can

be minimized. Furthermore, formation of pollutants [1] [2]
can be studied numerically. Simulation also offer the
possibility of conducting fuel injection strategy research [3]
[4] effectively. The combustion heat release process and
flame propagation [5] can be identified and studied.
CFD has been used to study the effect of different injection
strategy in diesel engines [6, 7, 8, 9]. In [6], CFD modeling
is used to estimate the formation of pollutants in the
combustion process and to find the optimum injection
strategy that reduces exhaust pollutants. The CFD study in
[7] shows that soot formation can be suppressed via
multi-injection. Specifically, the start of injection timing
(SOI) and split-main ratio have strong effect on the soot
formation. Retarded SOI and higher split-main ratio lead to
more soot pollutant. The CFD simulation results reveal the
soot formation process and location clearly [8]. The author
in [9] studied the effects of injection timing and intake
pressure on direct injection diesel engines. Simulation
results show that advanced injection timing increases
cylinder pressure, temperature, heat release rate, and NOx
emission. On the other hand, as the intake pressure is
increases, the heat release process speeds up and soot
exhaust pollutant is decreased, while NOx emission is
increased [9].
In this paper, a CFD diesel engine model is developed to
study the common rail diesel engine combustion.
Specifically, the characteristics of the gas velocity,
in-cylinder pressure and temperature, common-rail fuel
injection trajectories and mass fraction of gas components
are obtained from the CFD simulation. The effect of the fuel
injection timings on the combustion heat release process is
investigated and validated against cylinder pressure
measurement.

ENGINE SPECIFICATIONS
The engine used in this study is a Mitsubishi 4M42-4AT2
turbo-charged common-rail diesel engine as shown in Figure
1. This engine is equipped with turbo charger, common-rail
direct injection system and exhaust gas recirculation (EGR)
system. The engine specifications are summarized in Table

1. The initial conditions and boundary conditions in the

CFD model are set based on the experimental data. Due to
space limitation, only the results at 2000rpm without EGR
are show in this paper.
Table 1. Engine specifications
Engine Type
Displacement
Rated Power
Rated Torque
Cylinders
Compression Ratio
Fuel System
Injection Pressure
Nozzle
Air Intake System
Emission Control System
Intake Valve Opening
Intake Valve Closing
Exhaust Valve Opening
Exhaust Valve Closing

MITSUBISHI 4M42-4AT2
2977 c.c.
92.0 kW/3200rpm
294 Nm/1700rpm
In-line 4 Cylinder/4 Stroke
171
Common Rail (Direct Injection)
1600 bar max.
Hole
Turbocharged with intercooler
CAT, PCV, EGR
13
46
60
12

where Vc is the clearance volume, B is the bore diameter,

is the ratio of the length of connecting rod l to
crank radius a.

bTDC
aBDC
bBDC
aTDC

Figure 6. Engine geometry

VALVE LIFT PROFILES

There are 4 four valves on the top of cylinder of our engine,
including 2 inlet and 2 outlet valves. The motion of the
valve head is controlled by the cam-link-valve assembly.
Figure 8 shows the cam, links and valve geometry. The
parameter
is the cam rotation angle, l4 is the distance
between the pivot point (o) and the center of the roller, l2 is
the distance between the axis of the cam and the center of
the roller, l3 is the distance between the valve tip and the
Figure 1. MITSUBISHI 4M42-4AT2

pivot point (o), d is the radius of roller,

between radius r and d,

CFD MODELING
In order to obtain a realistic model of the engine, a spare
engine was disassembled and parts (such as the piston head
and valves) were cut open to determine the exact dimensions
of various parts.

is the angle

is the angle between link l1 and

the horizontal, and

is the angle between link l4 and the
horizontal. Based on the geometry in Figure 7, the
relationship between
and
valve lift can be calculated.

can be found and the

CYLINDER DISPLACEMENT
The geometric configuration of the piston-crank driving
mechanism of our engine is shown in Figure 6. With some
simple geometric relationships, the cylinder volume V can
be expressed in terms of the rotating angle as follows:
Figure 8 shows the cam geometry in the polar coordinate.
For convenience, the profile of the cam is divided into
four segments L1, L2, L3, L4, respectively. The radius of L4
is s, the radius of L2 is m, and n is the distance between two
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centers. The curves L2 and L4 are connected by two straight

lines L1 and L3.
L1 (

):

L2 (

):

L3 (

):

Figure 8. Cam geometry

ENGINE
L4 (

):

Figure 7. Cam, link and valve geometry

MODEL

The engine model is constructed using AUTOCAD based on

the specifications of the MITSUBISHI diesel engine shown
in Table 1 and measurement of key engine components,
such as the piston bowl and valve stems shown in Figure 9
and Figure 10 respectively. The combination of cylinder,
piston and valves forms the engine model shown in Figure
11. The gas filling volume forms the numerical simulation
zone shown in Figure 12. The complicated manifolds of the
inlet ports are not modeled at current stage.

Figure 9. The profile and coordinate of piston and piston

model

Combining (2) to (7), the valve lift profile can be

determined.

Figure 10. Valve and valve model

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Figure 11. Engine model

Figure 13. Mesh

NUMERICAL METHODS

Figure 12. Fluid model

MESH
The choice of meshing methods depends on the shape of the
model and the movement of each component. The meshing
method used in this study follows the works [10] [11] and
ANSYS FLUENT Guide [12]. As shown in Figure 13,
tetrahedrons method is used to the fill irregular shape of the
piston crown. The fluid close to cylinder head and in the
inlet and outlet ports adopts the sweeping method for
application of the Layering Mesh Method. The element sizes
are between 1 mm and 2.1 mm. And the number of nodes
and elements are 79181 and 207111 respectively.

In order to simulate the flow field in the combustion

chamber, the standard k-epsilon model is adopted in this
study. The engine intake model is pressure inlet. In this
model, the intake pressure, temperature and air compositions
can be determined. The plain orifice atomizer and droplet
collision and breakup are used respectively in injection type
and spray model to simulate the fuel injection. For the diesel
engine compression ignition, ignition delay model is
selected in the autoignition model. The minimum time step
is
As the engine is equipped
with turbo charger and EGR, the intake pressure and intake
gas compositions are determined based on the experimental
data.

SIMULATION RESULTS
In the CFD simulation, the cylinder variables in each cycle
are calculated from crank angle 360
to 1080
that
includes four strokes such as intake, compression, expansion
and exhaust respectively. The combustion top dead center
(TDC) is located at 720 . Table 2 shows the initial
conditions, boundary conditions and nozzle specification set
based on the experimental data obtained from the
MITSUBISHI 4M42-4AT2 diesel engine. In the following
figures, the left port is inlet and the right port is outlet. The
CFD simulation provides the in-cylinder pressure, velocity,
temperature and gas components. In other words, cylinder

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conditions during each stroke can be obtained for evaluation

of the engine design and control strategy. Figure 14 and
Figure 15 show the pressure and velocity fields inside the
combustion chamber during the intake stroke. Significantly
strong tumbling motion can be clearly observed in Figure 16.
Figures 17-19 show the temperature, fuel vapor C10H22 mass
fraction and O2 mass fraction during the combustion stroke
near top dead center. The simulation results reveal details of
C10H22 and O2 compositions during the combustion process.
Figure 17 exhibits that the burning starts from the inside
wall of cylinder bowl. Consequently, at the corresponding
areas in Figure 18 and Figure 19 it can be observed that the
C10H22 and O2 are consumed more than other areas.
Table 2. Engine conditions for simulation
Engine Speed
Intake Pressure
Intake Temperature
Initial Cylinder Pressure
Initial Cylinder Temperature
Initial Gas Composition
Number of injector holes
Injector hole diameter
Fuel flow rate of each hole
Injection duration

2000 rpm
1.40026 bar
301 K
2.49326 bar
484 K
O2 : 8.85%
CO2 : 7.11%
H2O : 2.626%
7
0.132 mm
0.000404344 kg/s
0.00055 s

Figure 15. Velocity field at 87bBDC

Figure 16. Tumble at 14.1aBDC

Figure 14. Pressure field at 87bBDC

Figure 17. Temperature field at 2aTDC

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Figure 18. C10H22 mass fraction at 2aTDC

Figure 19. O2 mass fraction at 2aTDC

Figure 20. The effects of the fuel injection timing on

cylinder gas pressure (TDC is at 720

Figure 21. The effects of the fuel injection timing on

cylinder gas temperature (TDC is at 720

The cylinder pressures at various injection timings show in

Figure 20 are validated against experimental measurement.
The cylinder pressures in Figure 20 result from the shift in
the combustion phasing at different injection timings. The
retarded injection of fuel leads to lower peak pressure as the
combustion is initiated late in the expansion stroke. Shift in
temperature at different injection timings is also observed in
Figure 21. The peak temperature is also decrease as the
injection timing retards. The temperature is decreased before
the combustion takes place due to the fuel vaporization. This
phenomenon can be observed in Figure 22 and Figure 23 as
the vaporization of fuel causes the temperature drop in the
piston crown.

Figure 22. In-cylinder temperature at 3bTDC

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Figure 23. Fuel vapor distributes at 3bTDC

CONCLUSIONS
A CFD model for a turbo-charged common-rail diesel
engine is constructed in this paper. Physical variables such
as cylinder pressure, gas velocity, cylinder temperature and
mass fraction of cylinder gas components can be easily
obtained from simulations. It can be used to explain the
macroscopic phenomena such as the cylinder gas
temperature dropping due to the fuel vaporization. This
research also discusses the effect of fuel injection timing on
the cylinder pressure and temperature. Results show that as
the fuel injection timing advances and the combustion
phasing advances, and the peak cylinder pressure and the
peak cylinder temperature raise. In this paper, the initial and
boundary conditions are set based on the measurement of
the pressure, temperature and gas compositions. The
simulation results are then validated against cylinder
pressure measurement at various fuel injection timings.

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CONTACT INFORMATION
Guan-Jhong Wang
Graduate Student Research Assistant
National Taiwan University of
Technology, Taipei, Taiwan
m10003434@mail.ntust.edu.tw

Science

and

Chia-Jui Chiang
Assistant Professor
National Taiwan University
Technology, Taipei, Taiwan
cjchiang@mail.ntust.edu.tw

of

Science

and

Yu-Hsuan Su
Assistant Professor
National Taiwan University
Technology, Taipei, Taiwan
ysu@mail.ntust.edu.tw

of

Science

and

Yong-Yuan Ku

Project Engineer
Automotive Research and Testing Center, Taiwan
tom@artc.org.tw

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank the funding support from
Bureau of Energy, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan,
R.O.C., under contract 102-D0107.

ABBREVIATIONS
CFD

computational fluid dynamics

SOI

start of injection

EGR

exhaust gas recirculation

TDC

top dead center

bTDC before top dead center

aTDC after top dead center
bBDC before bottom dead center
aBDC after bottom dead center

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