EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL STUDY OF AN INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE COOLANT FLOW DISTRIBUTION

Uniform cooling of all cylinders in an Internal Combustion Engine has been a continual challenge of many engineers and researchers. Different flow rate and velocity of coolant at similar locations of cylinders may cause some regions to be overcooled whereas some to be undercooled. In this study more uniform cooling engine is desired. To do this, at first the governing equations of the flow were solved 1D and 3D to obtain the velocity, pressure and temperature at various points of an existing engine numerically. Then Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) method on a transparent cylinder head made of Plexiglas was used to validate the numerical simulations. After validation, in order to reach intelligent cooling, some strategies such as small modifications in the engine coolant inlet and outlet along with its flow rates were applied that resulted in more uniform cooling which in turn prevents any over and under cooling.