Thermodynamic modeling of direct injection methanol fueled engines

In-cylinder pressure is an important parameter that is used to investigate the combustion process in internal combustion (IC) engines. In this paper, a thermodynamic model of IC engine combustion is presented and examined. A heat release function and an empirical conversion efficiency factor are introduced to solve the model. The pressure traces obtained by solving the thermodynamic model are compared with measured pressure data for a fully instrumented laboratory IC spark ignition (SI) engine. Derived scaling parameters for time to peak pressure, peak pressure, and maximum rate of pressure rise (among others) are developed and compared with the numerical simulations. The models examined here may serve as pedagogic tools and, when suitably refined, as preliminary design tools.