A new modeling approach of pressure waves at the inlet of internal combustion engines

This paper presents a new model used to describe the propagation of pressure waves at the inlet systems of internal combustion engine. In the first part, an analogy is made between the compressible air in a pipe and a mechanical ideal mass damper spring system. A new model is then presented and the parameters of this model are determined by the use of an experimental setup (shock tube test bench). With this model, a transfer function is defined in order to link directly the pressure and the air mass flow rate. In the second part, the model is included into an internal combustion engine simulation code. The results obtained with this code are compared to experimental ones which are measured on a one-cylinder engine test bench. This last one is driven by an electric motor in order to study only the effect of the pressure waves on the engine behavior. A good agreement is obtained between the experimental results and the numerical ones and the new approach is an alternative method for modeling the pressure wave phenomena in an internal combustion engine manifold.