The Effect of Intake Port and Piston Bowl Geometry on

Turbulence in IC Engine Combustion Chamber

The flow characteristic of intake port has a substantial influence on the combustion process in
IC engines, and directly decides the engine performance and emission.

The intake port shape of gasoline engine has a significant effect on tumble motion in-
cylinder, the tumble can accelerate fuel and air to form mixture.

The high tumble in cylinder transfers into turbulence kinetic energy as the piston close to top
dead center during compression stoke, that is good for accelerating the process of combustion
in cylinder and increasing the flame spread speed and improving the engine performance.

Literature Review:

1. In-cylinder tumble flows and performance of a motorcycle engine with

circular and elliptic intake ports R. F. Huang, K. H. Lin, C.-N. Yeh, J. Lan

A four-stroke, four-valve, single-cylinder, motorcycle engine, was used for the study.
Some important geometric and operating parameters of the engine were listed in Table 1.
The shape of the cylinder head was hemispherical on the top of the combustion chamber.

Two intake ports with different shapes at the entrances of the ports, as shown in Fig. 3,
were employed for experiments. One had a circular cross section with a diameter of 23
mm. The other one had a near-elliptic cross section with long and short axis of 25.8 and
20.4 mm, respectively.
 Lift histories of intake and exhaust valves

It was found that during the intake stroke, the elliptic intake port can initiate a vortex
around the central region of the cylinder earlier than the circular intake port does.

During the compression stroke, the central vortex created in the engine cylinder with the
circular intake port disappears, while that in the engine cylinder with the elliptic intake
port develops into the tumble installed with the elliptic intake port are apparently larger
than those of the engine with the circular intake port, while the specific fuel consumption
and hydrocarbon exhaust of the engine with the elliptic intake port are drastically lower
than those of the engine with the circular intake port.
2. Effect of Piston Bowl Geometry on Various Fluid Flow Patterns, P. Krishna
Kaushik, D. Sai Swaroop, IJERT, Vol. 3 Issue 5, May 2014

The main objective of the work was to do pressure and velocity distribution and
Turbulent intensity analysis on four different piston bowls and choosing the best piston
bowl out of four, based on the turbulent intensity.

Following boundary conditions were used in CFD analysis:

Constant pressure boundary conditions at the the inlet port.

Turbulent intensity -5%
Mixing length scale-0.001mm
Initial pressure at start of computation-0.99 bar and ambient temperature -298 K
Inlet port pressure-1.013 bar.

The above images gives the Turbulent Intensity of 4 piston bowls i.e., Toroidal chamber,
Mexican hat, Double Spherical Combustion Chamber and Hemispherical Bowl.

The areas with red spots have turbulence more than 20% which is highly undesirable, so,
the piston bowl with minimum red spot is considered as the best piston bowl in terms of
 in-cylinder flow and air-fuel interaction. Toroidal chamber is the best as it has minimum
area with red spot and the turbulent intensity in this chamber lies between 5-20%.
3. Comparative study of in-cylinder tumble flows in an internal combustion
engine using different piston shapesan insight using particle image
velocimetry B. Murali Krishna , J. M. Mallikarjuna

Single-cylinder, vertical, two-valve, air-cooled engine was coupled to an induction motor

of 3.7 kW through an electronic speed controller. Maximum speed of the motor was 1,500
rev/min. Following piston shapes were used in study:

At 330 CAD, the pentroof-offset-bowl piston shows an improvement of about 41% in the
tumble ratio compared to the flat piston.

Also, at 330 CAD, the pentroof-offset-bowl piston shows the higher average turbulent
kinetic energy compared to all the other piston crown shapes considered and about 103%
improvement over the flat piston.

At 330 CAD, dome-bowl and pentroof-central bowl pistons didnt show much
improvement in tumble ratio as well as average turbulent kinetic energy compared to the
flat and the pentroof-offset-bowl pistons.

Finally, it is suggested that the pentroof-offset-bowl piston is better choice in order to have
good tumble ratio as well as average turbulent kinetic energy at time of spark for modern
SI engines.
4. The Effect of Intake Port Shape on Gasoline Engine Combustion in Cylinder,
Xiaodong Chen and Zhangsong Zhan

Sketches of intake port

A short straight pipe was added to the inlet and outlet of port for better stability and
convergence. The sketch of two intake ports with different tumble is shown in Fig. 2, the MT
is the symbol of medium tumble and the HT is the symbol of high tumble.
The following are the conclusions obtained from the simulation work:

1. The shape of gasoline engine intake port greatly influences the charge motion and mixture
formation and combustion in cylinder. The key dimension of intake port with small
modification will change the performance of engine. The developments of intake port need to
consider the charge motion and tumble level, and that the intake port must match with
chamber and piston well.

2. The charge motion and combustion in cylinder can be accurately analysed by CFD, CFD
simulation can provide abundant flow and combustion information to help engineer to
understand the essential difference of different intake port. The CFD results shows the strong
tumble motion in cylinder can accelerate the process of combustion and increase the flame
speed. The modern engine with high tumble motion in cylinder will be a tendency.