Simulation and validation of an internal combustion engine under motored condition using OpenFOAM

This thesis presents unsteady RANS simulations of an internal combustion engine under motored conditions using OpenFOAM. The TCC-III engine running at 800 rpm was chosen due to its simple design and available experimental data. Meshing was performed with both commercial (GridPro) and open-source (snappyHexMesh) tools, and engine motion was modeled using Wärtsilä’s in-house mesh mover. Simulation results were compared with ensemble-averaged PIV data. GridPro meshes provided faster and more accurate results due to higher-quality, block-structured, body-conformed meshing. The study establishes a validated CFD setup for further benchmarking of numerical methods and models for IC engines in OpenFOAM.

Recommended citation: B. Shrestha. (2023). "Simulation and validation of an internal combustion engine under motored condition using OpenFOAM." Aalto University.
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