Evaporative Cooling of Internal Combustion Engines

Completed

Energy Efficiency(Transport)

Basic and strategic applied research

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering)

Not Cross-cutting

Dr J Dunne
Engineering and Design
University of Sussex

Standard

EPSRC

23 February 2015

22 December 2018

46 months

£671,814

Mechanical engineering

South East

NC : Engineering

Dr J Dunne, Engineering and Design, University of Sussex

Dr A Zolotas, Sch of Engineering and Informatics, University of Sussex

Project Contact, Ford Motor Company
Project Contact, Ricardo AEA Limited
Project Contact, DENSO Corporation, Japan

The proposed work will examine an evaporative cooling system for use on modern Internal Combustion (IC) engines. The project aims to assess the impact of surface vibration and dynamics on the heat transfer capabilities and stability of controlled evaporative cooling for typical engine coolant jackets. The approach will include use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to predict 2-Phase flow for simplified and representative coolant jacket geometries. This CFD work will assist in getting an understanding of the physics of evaporative cooling, that will in turn assist in the development of robust control strategies to handle what is considered to be a very effective but potentially unstable heat transfer mechanism. A pilot control system will be built allowing the effectiveness of robust control in the presence of vibration and agitation to be experimentally assessed and verified. This 3-year project will be of direct benefit to the academic community since it should generate new fundamental knowledge of evaporative cooling, of particular interest to IC engine research, as existing engine cooling systems are nearing their thermal limits because they exploit forced-convection-based heat transfer involving a water/glycol mixture passing through a coolant jacket. This limit in turn, restricts the performance of both (CI) compression ignition (diesel) engines, and spark ignition (SI) gasoline engines, particularly with engine downsizing, where the intended application could be for conventional or parallel hybrid vehicles, or as compact, high power-weight-ratio range extender engines for Extended Range Electric Vehicles. Evaporative cooling is of considerable interest to automotive vehicle manufacturers and suppliers, because many see the great potential of evaporative cooling over conventional convective systems, to achieve improved IC engine fuel economy and reduced CO2 emissions

15/07/15