Inviscid Solutions of the Flowfield in an Internal Combustion Engine

The complete Navier--Stokes equations were previously applied to the solution of the viscous flowfield inside an internal combustion engine for a complete 4-stroke cycle-intake, compression, power, and exhaust. The major problem with such solutions is their restriction to low Reynolds numbers in order to remain within practical computer times. An investigation is presented of the inviscid flowfield in an IC engine. Some advantages of an inviscid solution are: (1) full-scale engines running under atmospheric conditions can be readily treated in reasonably practical computer times; (2) the true flowfield inside real IC engines might be reasonably modeled via a large inviscid core plus a viscous boundary layer at the walls, as conventionally done in aerodynamics; and (3) an inviscid solution might be the most practical vehicle for initial studies of the interaction between the flowfield and the combustion processes.