Numerical analysis of flow characteristics for intake valve design

Steady flow bench test is a practical, powerful and widely used one for most engine manufacturers to give a design concept of a new engine, especially for the intake system. In order to use the steady data as a performance index, it is necessary to build up massive database, which can correlate the port characteristics with engine data. However, it is hard to investigate all port and valve shapes with experimental tools. The steady flow scheme is relatively simple and its results are bulk ones such as flow rates and momentum of flow. Therefore, computational simulation can easily be applied for evaluation of the intake port and valve designs. In this study, three-dimensional numerical analysis of the steady flow characteristics was performed on intake valve design for comparison with experimental data, which can confirm the feasibility of applying analytic method. For this purpose, the effect of valve curvature on flow rate was estimated using a CFD code. The analytical results showed that they were consistent with the experimental data and the simulation was an appropriate tool for evaluation of the intake system.