Combustion Simulations under IC Engine-Relevant Conditions Using Dynamic Adaptive Multi-Zone Method

The multi-zone (MZ) method is a proven chemical source term solving acceleration algorithm and has been widely used in the numerical research on internal combustion engines. It bins cells with similar thermodynamic states to reduce the number of calls to the reaction step integrator, which is computationally expensive. In this study, a dynamic adaptive multi-zone (DAMZ) method has been proposed. The principal improvement to the existing MZ algorithm is a new binning method in which the binning criteria of the DAMZ method can be chosen automatically as the simulation is performed. A resolution adjustment strategy is also adopted. To validate the DAMZ method under internal combustion engine relevant conditions, two 1D auto-ignition cases with different initial setups and one 3D spark-ignition engine simulation have been conducted. Furthermore, a primary reference fuel chemical mechanism is used to consider the multi-regime oxidation chemistry characteristic of large hydrocarbon molecules. According to the simulation results, the proposed DAMZ method demonstrates a good performance. It is able to mitigate the calculation error induced by the existing MZ method while maintaining the acceleration efficiency.