International Journal of Engine Research

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Exhaust Tuning of Large-Bore, Multicylinder, Two-Stroke, Natural Gas Engines

J Adair, D Olsen and A Kirkpatrick
International Journal of Engine Research 2006 7: 131
DOI: 10.1243/146808705X58297

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 131

Exhaust tuning of large-bore, multicylinder,

two-stroke, natural gas engines
J Adair, D Olsen, and A Kirkpatrick*
Mechanical Engineering Department, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA

The manuscript was accepted after revision for publication on 24 June 2005.

DOI: 10.1243/146808705X58297

Abstract: In this paper, computational modelling of the exhaust system of two types of
large-bore, multicylinder, two-stroke engine is performed. The airflow performance of a
four-cylinder V-bank Cooper GMV-4TF engine and a six-cylinder in-line Clark TLA engine is
simulated. The simulation includes the computation of pressure wave propagation in the
exhaust manifold. Using a modified method of the steepest ascent numerical technique,
tuned exhaust manifolds are designed for each engine with the objective of reduced NO
emissions. The NO reduction is accomplished by increasing the trapped cylinder mass and
correspondingly reducing the peak combustion temperature. The simulations predict NO
reductions in the range 10–30 per cent as a result of exhaust tuning.

Keywords: exhaust tuning, two-stroke natural gas engines, compressor engine, NO

reduction, pressure waves

1 INTRODUCTION waves that propagate at sonic velocity through

The topic of this paper is the use of exhaust tuning
as a technique for NO reduction in large-bore,
two-stroke, natural gas engines. There are approxi-
mately 8000 large-bore (bore>30 cm) and slow-
speed (speed<500 r/min) two-stroke natural gas
engines in operation in the United States. Natural gas
engines have been used for many years in stationary
applications such as gas compression and electric
power generation. They have been the focus of
research attention recently owing to increased
emission requirements. This class of engine operates
at a relatively constant speed and load. The most
common configuration is a multicylinder two-stroke
cycle with ‘V’ or in-line cylinder configurations. The
gas delivery is by direct injection of pressurized gas
into the cylinder.
The flow in the exhaust system of two-stroke
engines is unsteady owing to the periodic opening
and closing of the exhaust ports. The opening and
closing of the ports create finite-amplitude pressure
* Corresponding author: Mechanical Engineering Department,
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80524-1374, USA.
email: allan@engr.colostate.edu
the exhaust gas flow. Exhaust systems are sized or
‘tuned’ to use the pressure waves to optimize engine
performance at a given speed. For multicylinder
engines, pressure waves from one cylinder can affect
the pressures at the exhaust ports of the other
cylinders, depending on the timing of the port open-
ing and closings. A compression wave arriving at a
cylinder exhaust port just before the exhaust ports
close can improve the trapping efficiency of the
cylinder.
There is an extensive set of experimental and
analytical literature dealing with the tuning of the
exhaust system of two-stroke engines. Representative
studies of the tuning of single-cylinder engines
are given in references [1] to [3]. Recently, Gustafsson
et al. [4] studied a small two-stroke engine mainly
used in small hand-held power tools. The purpose
of the study was to meet emissions requirements
through exhaust tuning without compromising any
of the power density benefit that comes from
employing a two-stroke engine. Chapman et al. [5]
modelled the flow in four-stroke intake and exhaust
system runners and manifolds, and showed that pre-
dictions from one-dimensional CFD simulations
compared well with experimental values. A summary

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132 J Adair, D Olsen, and A Kirkpatrick
of the published literature on unsteady gas flow
through intake and exhaust systems is given in
reference [6].
In the present paper, computational modelling
of the exhaust system of two types of multicylinder
two-stroke engine is performed. The exhaust systems
of two of the most common large-bore engine
configurations are optimized for reduction of NO
emissions. The computational modelling is performed
using the engine simulation program WAVE [7, 8],
which solves the one-dimensional compressible
flow equations for the time dependent flow of gas
mixtures in an engine system, and is integrated with
combustion heat release, friction, heat transfer, and
emissions models. The combustion model is a two-
zone (burned and unburned gas zones) Weibe heat
release model.
2 COMPUTATIONAL ANALYSIS
2.1 Cooper–Bessemer GMV
The first engine analysed in the present paper is a
four-cylinder Cooper–Bessemer GMV-4TF engine. A
schematic of the engine is shown in Fig. 1. The
engine has direct injection and is fuelled with natural
gas. The inlet manifold pressure is nominally 25.4 kPa
above atmospheric pressure through the use of a
turbocharger, with an exhaust manifold backpressure
of 17.0 kPa above atmospheric pressure. This engine
has a V-bank piston/cylinder configuration with
a 35.5 cm cylinder bore. The engine powers two
reciprocating compressors that are integral with the
Fig. 1 Cooper–Bessemer GMV with a baseline exhaust
manifold
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power pistons. The even bank, cylinders two and
four, is shown in the front of the figure, and the odd
bank, with cylinders one and three, is in the back of
the figure. All four cylinders exhaust into a sectioned
exhaust manifold via exhaust runners.
The engine has articulated connecting rod geo-
metry. As shown in Fig. 2, the crank throw pins for
the four power pistons are offset from the main crank
throw pin for the compressor piston. As a conse-
quence, the crank throw pins for the power pistons
prescribe different elliptical orbits. These charac-
teristics lead to differences between odd and even
banks in piston motion, port timing, and com-
pression ratio. The differences in motion between the
left and right banks result in the odd-bank exhaust
ports being open for about four additional degrees
and the intake ports being open for two additional
degrees relative to the even bank. The four-cylinder
GMV is an odd-fire engine, as the timing between
top dead centre (TDC) of the cylinders is not
equal. The timing between TDC from cylinder 1 to
cylinder 2 is 62.5°, from 2 to 3 it is 117.5°, from 3 to 4
it is 62.5°, and from 4 to 1 it is 117.5°.
During engine operation in the field, the mass
of fuel injected into each cylinder is adjusted to
obtain a maximum cylinder combustion pressure of
3450 kPa. The ignition timing is also adjusted so that
the peak pressure in each cylinder occurs at 18° after
TDC. The engine is operated in a lean combustion
mode with overall equivalence ratios between 0.6
and 0.7. Experimental measurements by Evans
et al. [9] indicate that, owing to the additional fuel
required to match peak pressures, the even (2–4)
bank runs more richly and produces nearly twice as
much NO (467 ppm versus 863 ppm) as the even
bank. The scavenging in this engine is Schnurle or
Fig. 2 Articulated connecting rod geometry of the
Cooper–Bessemer engine
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 Exhaust tuning of natural gas engines 133

loop scavenging, in which the intake ports are angled

upwards to reduce short circuiting of the inlet flow.
For more information, schlieren photography of the
combustion and scavenging flowfields in this engine
is presented in reference [10], and computational
modelling of the gas injection and in-cylinder mixing
is given in reference [11]. Additional engine geo-
metric parameters are given in Table 1. Note that the
geometric compression ratio is based on the cylinder
volume at bottom dead centre, and the trapped
compression ratio is based on the cylinder volume
at exhaust port closure.

2.2 Clark TLA-6

The second engine studied is a six-cylinder in-line
Clark TLA-6 engine. This engine is also a two-stroke,
lean burn, natural gas fuelled engine, with a 43.18 cm
bore and a 48.26 cm stroke. The engine is operated
at 300 r/min, with a standard crankshaft–piston
geometry, so that all the pistons and the port open-
ings and closings have the same profile, and are sym-
metric about top and bottom dead centre. As shown
in Fig. 3, the engine has exhaust runners from
each cylinder to a common exhaust manifold. The
exhaust manifold has a cylindrical geometry with a
57.5 cm diameter and extends the full length of the
engine. The exhaust runners are 56.8 cm in length, Fig. 3 Clark TLA engine with intake and exhaust
and extend in a linear fashion from the cylinders manifolds
to the exhaust manifold. The inlet manifold pressure
is nominally 41.3 kPa above atmospheric pressure Table 2 Design features of the Clark TLA-6
through use of a turbocharger. Additional geometric test engine
data about the Clark engine are given in Table 2.
Number of cylinders 6
Bore 43.18 cm
2.3 Exhaust system optimization technique Stroke 48.26 cm
Connecting rod length 120.7 cm
A modified method of the steepest ascent statistical Geometric compression ratio 10.5
technique [12] is used for exhaust system opti- Trapped compression ratio 7.8
Number of intake ports 6
mization. There were up to seven independent Number of exhaust ports 3
variables involved in the optimization of the exhaust Intake port opening 130° ATDC
systems in this study. With this technique, the Exhaust port opening 110° ATDC
Fuel supply system Direct injection
independent variables can be varied simultaneously, Ignition type Dual spark

Table 1 GMV-4TF engine geometry

rather than one at a time. The method can be
Odd bank 1–3 Even bank 2–4 visualized as a hypercube in n-dimensional para-
Number of cylinders 2 2 meter space. A high value and a low value are chosen
Bore (cm) 35.56 35.56 for each independent variable. In three-dimensional
Stroke (cm) 35.64 35.56 space, eight combinations of high and low values of
Connecting rod length (cm) 89.22 89.22
Geometric compression ratio 12.08 11.75 the three independent parameters correspond to
Trapped compression ratio 9.07 8.77 corners of a cube. Each of these corner combinations
Intake ports/cylinder 8 8
Exhaust ports/cylinder 5 5
is then used in the WAVE simulation to compute the
Exhaust port open (ATDC) 116.0 114.5 value of the dependent variables – the engine-out
Exhaust port closed (BTDC) 107.0 112.5 NO. The nominal conditions, or the centre of the
Exhaust port open duration 137.0 133.0
cube, are also computed.

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134 J Adair, D Olsen, and A Kirkpatrick

Once all the corners of the cube are computed, Table 3 Input parameters for WAVE simulation of
the ‘best’ corner of the cube, i.e. the one with the GMV engine
minimum NO, relative to the nominal conditions, is Input parameter Odd bank Even bank
selected as the new optimum. A new cube is set up
where the centre point of the new cube is the Pressure (kPa)
inlet 25.4 25.4
‘best’ corner of the previous cube. A sequence of exhaust 17.0 17.0
cubes are computed until no further improvement is Fluid temperature (K)
inlet 316.5 316.5
found. This process is repeated using progressively exhaust 600 600
smaller ‘cubes’ until the change in NO is less than Scavenging model Fully mixed Fully mixed
0.01 g/kW h. Heat transfer multiplier
piston top 1.23 1.23
cylinder head 1.36 1.36
Friction multiplier 3.31 3.31
Wiebe function
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 50% burn location (deg) 13.8 12.7
10–90% burn duration 22 22
3.1 Cooper GMV simulation results exponent 2.676 2.676

The engine combustion and the unsteady gas flow

and airflow through the four cylinders and the intake
and exhaust runners and manifolds of the Cooper
GMV were computed in the WAVE simulation, shown
schematically in Fig. 4. The two engine banks were
modelled separately to account for their geometric
differences. Representative discharge coefficient pro-
files for the intake and exhaust ports as a function
of crank angle and pressure difference were obtained
from reference [13]. Matching of peak pressure
and location of peak pressure to experiment was
accomplished in the heat release model by adjusting
the fuel delivered to each cylinder and adjusting the
50 per cent burn location of the Wiebe function, as
indicated in Table 3. The Wiebe function exponent
and 10–90 per cent burn duration required for the
heat release modelling were obtained from averaged
experimental data [14] for each cylinder bank. The
multipliers used in the friction and heat transfer
modelling are also tabulated in Table 3.
The overall simulation results are summarized in
Table 4 and compared with experiment [14]. Note
that the even bank required a greater amount of fuel
to balance all the cylinder maximum pressures at
34.5 bar, consistent with experimental results. The
even bank is predicted to have about a 10 per cent
lower airflow rate than the odd bank. The brake
power and mass flow of fresh air calculated by
the model are within 2 per cent of the test engine.
Various two-stroke airflow parameters, such as
the trapping efficiency, the delivery ratio, and the
scavenging efficiency, were computed and compared
with experiment. The trapping efficiency is defined
as the mass of delivered air retained divided by the
mass of delivered air. The scavenging efficiency is
defined as the mass of delivered air retained divided
by the mass of trapped cylinder charge. The delivery
ratio is the mass of delivered air per cycle divided
by the displaced volume and ambient density. The
trapping and scavenging efficiencies are greater for
the odd bank relative to the even bank. The com-
puted trapping efficiencies of about 0.49 were lower
than the overall measured value of 0.54. One possible
explanation for this discrepancy is the uncertainty of
the flow coefficients of the exhaust port.
Figure 5 shows the computed pressure traces for
all four cylinders of the engine. The plot shows the
cylinder pressure relative to cylinder 1 crank angle
degrees. The maximum pressure for all four cylinders

Fig. 4 WAVE model of the GMV engine

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 Exhaust tuning of natural gas engines 135

Table 4 Overall Cooper GMV performance results

Odd bank Even bank Average Experiment [14]

Fuel flow per cylinder (kg/h) 18.99 19.08 19.03 19.26

Airflow per cylinder (kg/h) 876 830 853 839
Brake power (kW/cyl) 82.2 82.3 82.2 80.9
Peak pressure (kPa) 3430 3420 3425 3450
i.m.e.p. (kPa) 524 525 524 586
Trapping efficiency 0.487 0.466 0.477 0.54
Delivery ratio 1.77 1.84 1.80 1.54
Scavenging efficiency 0.861 0.858 0.86 0.83

towards the head. Cylinder gas is forced out of

Fig. 5 Computed GMV cylinder pressure profiles
is approximately 3450 kPa. The odd-firing sequence
is evident, with cylinders 1 and 2 separated by 62.5°,
similarly to cylinders 3 and 4.
Figure 6 shows the trapped mass in a cylinder at
any time during the cycle relative to cylinder 1 crank
angle degrees. Cylinder 1, for example, begins blow-
down at approximately +120°, when the exhaust
port is uncovered. At this point the amount of mass
in the cylinder rapidly decreases. Once blowdown is
complete at about +140°, the denser scavenging air
begins to enter the cylinder, increasing the amount
of mass in the cylinder. The decrease in the cylinder
mass from about −140° to −120° represents the time
in the cycle when the intake ports are closed, but the
exhaust ports are open, and the piston is moving
the cylinder during this period. At about −120° the
exhaust ports are effectively closed, and the slight
increase in mass that follows is from fuel injection.
At roughly −90° the cylinder 1 fuel injection is com-
plete, and the amount of mass in the cylinder is fixed.
Note that the maximum gas mass in the cylinders
of the odd bank is higher than the amount of gas
mass in the even-bank cylinders. The minimum
mass in each cylinder, however, is about the same.
Consequently, the odd bank has a larger change in
trapped mass than the even bank and therefore has
a slightly higher scavenging efficiency.
The temperature profiles are shown in Fig. 7. The
higher line for each cylinder represents the tempera-
ture for the burned gases. The lower line for each
cylinder represents the temperature of the unburned
gases. The profile for the unburned gases appears
identical for all four cylinders of the engine. The peak
temperature of the even bank was 2290 K, and the
peak temperature for the odd bank was lower at
2170 K. One explanation for this difference is that the
greater amount of trapped mass in the odd bank
increases the total specific heat of the cylinder mix-
ture, which reduces the temperature change during
combustion.
The engine-out NO was computed by applying the
extended Zeldovich reaction in the burned gas zone.
Since NO formation is exponentially dependent

Fig. 7 GMV burned and unburned gas temperature

Fig. 6 GMV trapped mass profiles profiles

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136 J Adair, D Olsen, and A Kirkpatrick
on temperature, the higher burned gas temperature
of the even-bank cylinders results in greater NO
formation in the even bank relative to the odd bank,
consistent with engine test results [9], as shown in
Table 5.
3.2 GMV tuning results
The unique configuration of the GMV engine con-
tributes to performance differences in the two engine
banks. This originates from the timing sequence of
the exhaust port pressure waves from the cylinders.
The exhaust port timing profiles for the four
cylinders are shown in Fig. 8. Relative to cylinder 1
top dead centre, the exhaust ports for cylinder 1 are
open from +116 to −107°, for cylinder 2 from −183
to −50°, for cylinder 3 from −64 to +73°, and for
cylinder 4 from −3 to +130°. Using an order of
magnitude computation, if the characteristic acoustic
wave speed is 500 m/s, and a characteristic length
scale for the cylinder separation is 5 m, then the
characteristic wave propagation time between cylin-
ders is 10 ms or 18°. Therefore, by examination of
Fig. 8, there are only two cases where the exhaust
pressure wave from one cylinder can propagate to the
exhaust port of another cylinder as the port closes,
namely, from cylinder 2 to cylinder 1, and from
cylinder 4 to cylinder 3. As the exhaust ports for
cylinder 2 open, the exhaust ports for cylinder 1 are
closing. Likewise, as the exhaust ports for cylinder 4
Table 5 Cooper GMV engine-out NO emissions
(g/bkW h)
Odd bank Even bank
Experiment [9] 4.95 9.15
Baseline simulation 3.71 10.83
Tuned simulation 4.68 8.19
Fig. 8 Exhaust port area versus crank angle (relative to
cylinder 1 TDC)
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open, the exhaust ports for cylinder 3 are closing.
With the baseline exhaust manifold configuration,
the other exhaust pressure waves do not reach open
exhaust ports of other cylinders.
More precisely, from the WAVE computation, the
pressure wave from cylinder 2 travels through the
exhaust system and arrives at cylinder 1 in about
7.6 ms (~15° CA) while its exhaust ports are still
open. The pressure wave from cylinder 4 travels
through the exhaust system and arrives at cylinder 3
in about 12.8 ms (~25° CA). Figure 9 shows the local
pressure profiles for cylinders 1 and 2, indicating the
locally greater pressure at cylinder 1 just prior to
exhaust port closure at −107°.
Therefore, the compression waves from the even
cylinders act as ‘plugging pulses’ and reduce the
charging air loss from the odd cylinders, increasing
the trapped mass in the odd cylinder bank. This in
turn decreases the peak temperature, and the NO
formation in the odd bank. A single-cylinder WAVE
model was also developed to assess the influence
of the reflected compression and rarefaction waves
on the cylinder that originated the pressure waves.
The results indicated that the influence of these
waves was insignificant relative to the intercylinder
pressure waves.
In its baseline operation, the odd cylinders of
the GMV are tuned, but the even cylinders are not.
Additional simulations were performed to attempt
to tune the even cylinders. A conventional solution
would be to change the length of the exhaust
runners, but this was found adversely to affect the
tuning of the odd cylinders. Another solution is
the use of additional runners or jumpers. The even
cylinders were successfully tuned by the addition
of ‘jumpers’ which directly connected the exhaust
elbows of opposing odd and even cylinders. As
Fig. 9 Pressure wave profile at port closure for
cylinders 1 and 2
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 Exhaust tuning of natural gas engines 137

shown in Fig. 10, the first jumper connects the
exhaust elbows of cylinder one and two, and the
other jumper connects the exhaust elbows of
cylinders three and four. The jumpers allow a new
propagation path for the even-bank pressure waves
to the odd-bank cylinders, while allowing the odd-
bank pressure waves to follow the original baseline
propagation path to the even cylinders.
An optimization to minimize NO emissions was
performed with the length and the cross-sectional
area of the jumpers as the independent variables.
The optimum condition occurred when the jumper
was just long enough to connect the exhaust runners,
the minimum possible length for the specific engine
geometry. The optimum cross-sectional area of the
jumper is the same as the cross-sectional area of
the exhaust runners. The jumper length is less than
the length required for the odd cylinders to help
plug the even cylinders based on the simple wave
propagation model. One explanation for this result
is that the jumpers attenuate the rarefaction waves
reflecting back to the even cylinders, thus increasing
the trapped mass in the even cylinders.
The computations indicate that the tuned mani-
fold did not impact upon any of the engine perform-
ance parameters. The parameters, listed in Table 6,
changed by less than 1 per cent from the baseline
exhaust system to the tuned exhaust system. As
shown in Table 5, however, the NO formation did
decrease by 12 per cent. The amount of NO decreased
in the even bank from 10.83 to 8.19 g/bkW h, offset
by a slight increase in NO in the even bank.

3.3 TLA simulation results

The WAVE simulation of the Clark TLA engine is
shown schematically in Fig. 11. As with the Cooper
GMV, the simulation included computation of the
Fig. 10 Tuned exhaust manifold with jumpers combustion heat release and the unsteady gas flow

Table 6 Performance of tuned GMV exhaust manifolds

Odd bank Even bank Average

Fuel flow per cylinder (kg/h) 18.9 18.9 18.9

Airflow per cylinder (kg/h) 841.0 856.0 849.0
Brake power (kW/cyl) 82.0 82.0 82.0
Peak pressure (kPa) 3400 3420 3410
i.m.e.p. (kPa) 523 524 523
Trapping efficiency 0.496 0.464 0.480
Delivery ratio 1.72 1.86 1.79
Scavenging efficiency 0.854 0.862 0.858

Fig. 11 Schematic of the WAVE model of the Clark engine

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138 J Adair, D Olsen, and A Kirkpatrick

and airflow through the engine. The input para- Table 8 Performance of baseline and tuned Clark TLA
meters used for the Clark WAVE model are given in exhaust manifolds
Table 7. Test data were limited for the TLA engine Variable-length
and the peak pressure was unknown. Therefore, the Baseline runner
amount of fuel injected and the 10–90 per cent burn
Fuel flow per cylinder (kg/h) 59.0 58.14
duration of the heat release function were chosen to Airflow per cylinder (kg/h) 2616 2700
match the known b.m.e.p. of 703 kPa and brake Brake power (kW/cyl) 245 245
Peak pressure (kPa) 5190 5280
power of 1470 kW, and to obtain an equivalence ratio Location of P (CA) 18 18
between 0.7 and 0.8. This equivalence ratio range is max
i.m.e.p. (kPa) 829 829
typical of this class of lean burn natural gas engine. Trapping efficiency 0.491 0.490
Delivery ratio 1.771 1.777
The same amount of fuel, 3.275 g, was injected into Scavenging efficiency 0.870 0.871
each cylinder. These model assumptions resulted in
peak pressures of about 5190 kPa. The burn location
and duration of the model were chosen so that The computed pressure profiles for all six cylinders
the peak pressure in each cylinder occurred at 18° are given in Fig. 12. The firing order is 1–4–5–2–3–6,
after TDC, similarly to the operation of the Cooper and the plot shows the cylinder pressure relative
GMV. The overall Clark TLA simulation results are to cylinder 1 crank angle degrees. There is some
summarized in Table 8. The Clark engine is predicted variability in the maximum pressure, with an average
to have slightly greater scavenging and trapping maximum pressure of approximately 5190 kPa.
efficiencies than the Cooper engine. Figure 13 shows the amount of gas mass in the cylin-
ders during engine operation. The amount of mass
Table 7 Input parameters for WAVE varies from cylinder to cylinder, with cylinder 6
simulation of the Clark TLA having the largest trapped mass, and cylinders 2 and
engine 4 having the least trapped mass. The burned and
Pressure
unburned temperature profiles for the six cylinders
inlet 41.3 kPa g are plotted in Fig. 14. There is also some variability
exhaust 32.8 kPa g in the maximum temperatures, with the largest maxi-
Fluid temperature
inlet 316.5 K mum temperatures predicted to occur in cylinders 2
exhaust 600 K and 4. As with the Cooper GMV, one explanation
Scavenging model Fully mixed for this difference is that the greater amount of
Friction multiplier 7.25
Wiebe function trapped mass in cylinders 2 and 4 increases the total
50% burn location 11.9° specific heat of the cylinder mixture, which reduces
10–90% burn duration 22.125°
exponent 2.676 the temperature change during combustion. The
Stroke 48.3 cm NO emissions were predicted to be 12.8 g/bkW h,
Bore 43.2 cm tabulated in Table 9, slightly less than the Cooper
Geometric compression ratio 10.5
GMV NO emissions.

Fig. 12 Computed cylinder pressure profiles for Clark engine

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 Exhaust tuning of natural gas engines 139

Fig. 13 Trapped mass profiles for the Clark engine

Fig. 14 Computed burned and unburned temperature profiles for the Clark engine

Table 9 Clark TLA engine-out NO emissions

Configuration NO (g/bkW h)

Baseline simulation 12.8

Variable-length runner optimization 8.4

3.4 TLA tuning results

For the Clark TLA engine, an optimization varying
the individual exhaust runner lengths was per-
formed. The exhaust runner lengths for each of the
six cylinders were varied assuming a straight runner
geometry, as shown in Fig. 15. Runner 1 is designated
as the runner at the right or rear side of the manifold.
The arrows indicate the exhaust gas flow path from
Fig. 15 Variable runner length exhaust manifold design
the runner into the exhaust manifold. To accom-
modate the variable-length runners, the exhaust
manifold cross-section was assumed to have a slot-
like rectangular aspect ratio. For the optimization,

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140 J Adair, D Olsen, and A Kirkpatrick
the engine-out NO was the dependent variable. The
brake power and the b.m.e.p. were maintained at
the nominal values by changing the amount of
fuel injected into the engine. The location of peak
pressure was reset to 18° ATDC on the WAVE models
by changing the 50 per cent burn location. Also, the
inlet diameter for the exhaust runners was restricted
by engine block geometry and was held constant.
The results of the optimization are given in Table 9,
indicating that the NO emissions were reduced by
34 per cent. The runner lengths resulting from the
optimization process are listed in Table 10, indicating
that runners for cylinders 1, 5, and 6 almost doubled
in length, and the runners for cylinders 3 and 4
decreased to less than one-third of their original
length. The decrease in NO is due to the increase in
the trapped mass and the corresponding decrease in
maximum temperature. Inspection of the tempera-
ture profiles indicated that the maximum tem-
perature for cylinder 4 decreased by about 100 K, and
the maximum temperature decreased by about 60 K
for cylinders 1 and 2. This was due to an increase in
the trapped mass for these cylinders.
In addition, the tuned exhaust runners did not
significantly change any of the engine performance
parameters. These parameters, listed in Table 8,
changed by less than 3 per cent from the baseline
exhaust system to the tuned exhaust system.
4 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
Computational modelling of the exhaust system of
two types of large-bore, multicylinder, two-stroke
engine was performed. The airflow performance of
a four-cylinder V-bank Cooper GMV-4TF engine and
a six-cylinder in-line Clark TLA engine was simu-
lated. Using a modified method of the steepest
ascent numerical technique, new exhaust manifolds
were designed for each engine with the objective
Table 10 Optimized exhaust runner
length
Baseline Variable runner
length length
Runner (cm) (cm)
1 56.8 95.3
2 56.8 59.7
3 56.8 19.1
4 56.8 19.1
5 56.8 115.6
6 56.8 95.3
Int. J. Engine Res. Vol. 7
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of reduced NO emissions. The NO reduction was
accomplished by increasing the trapped cylinder
mass and correspondingly reducing the peak com-
bustion temperature. The simulations predict NO
reductions in the range 10–30 per cent as a result of
exhaust tuning.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research was supported by the Gas Research
Institute (GRI). The authors would also like to
acknowledge the engine geometry measurements
provided by Mr Kirk Evans and by the Dresser-Rand
Company.
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