Automotive Related Flows

_{Funded by NASA Lewis, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, GM, EPA, DOE; students: Erlendur Steinthorrson, Joe Li, Leo Li, Xingkai Chi, Kenny Hu, Chien-Shing Lee}

Contributions made include:

1. Developed algorithms and codes to study the flow, fuel-air mixing, and combustion in Wankel rotary engines.
2. Developed grid-generation tools for KIVA to enable the analysis highly convoluted cylinder head and piston bowls for efficient and low emission direct-injection IC engines.
3. Assessed the performance of KIVA, Fluent, Star-CD, and FIRE for computing flow in the combustion chamber of three 4-value internal combustion engines (a generic pan-cake chamber, a Ford commercial engine, and a DaimlerChrysler engine) via comparison with experimental data.
4. Evaluated and validated models and codes for computing flow of water over car roofs.
5. Evaluated CFD models and codes for computing flows in torque converters.
6. Performed CFD simulations of a full torque converter with all blade/vane passages in the pump, turbine, and stator that accounted for leakage flow up to the clutch (first to do this and the first to show the effects of models for rotor-stator interactions for one passage versus all passages and the important role played by seal leakages). Water Flow on Car Roof Automotive Torque Converter Flow in IC Engine Combustion Chamber Intake and Exhaust Manifolds