Numerical analysis on combustion characteristic of leaf spring rotary engine

The purpose of this paper is to investigate combustion characteristics for rotary engine via numerical studies. A 3D numerical model was developed to study the influence of several operative parameters on combustion characteristics. A novel rotary engine called, "Leaf Spring Rotary Engine", was used to illustrate the structure and principle of the engine. The aims are to (1) improve the understanding of combustion process, and (2) quantify the influence of rotational speed, excess air ratio, initial pressure and temperature on combustion characteristics. The chamber space changed with crankshaft rotation. Due to the complexity of chamber volume, an equivalent modeling method was presented to simulate the chamber space variation. The numerical simulations were performed by solving the incompressible, multiphase Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes Equations via the commercial code FLUENT using a transport equation-based combustion model; a realizable κ - ω turbulence model and finite-rate/eddy-dissipation model were used to account for the effect of local factors on the combustion characteristics.