High-Resolution Scalar and Velocity Measurements in an Internal Combustion Engine

Abstract

High-resolution planar laser-induced fluorescence and particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements were acquired during the intake stroke in a motored engine to investigate the mixing behavior of in-cylinder flows. The data were analyzed to determine the scalar energy and kinetic energy spectra, which were used to find the corresponding dissipation spectra. The results were compared with a model turbulent spectrum. The scalar energy and scalar dissipation spectra were shown to be resolved through the full dissipation range, enabling the determination of the Batchelor/Kolmogorov length scale and agreed well with the model turbulent spectrum at all but the highest wavenumbers where the effects of random noise were present. The 2% point in the scalar dissipation spectra was used to estimate the Batchelor scale, which was found to be approximately 32 μm. The PIV data, which had a 675 μm interrogation region, were used to calculate a one-dimensional kinetic energy spectrum. The kinetic energy spectrum agreed well with the scalar energy spectrum and the model spectrum up to wavenumbers corresponding to approximately two times the PIV interrogation region size. For the present measurements, this meant that the PIV data were not able to resolve the peak in the dissipation spectrum, i.e., the full high-wavenumber part of the inertial subrange.