Automotive Engineering

 

Exploring Ricardo Wave Software

 

 

Abstract

            One of latest issues arising today is more on the developments that will help improve our environment. The environment is gradually facing a lot of changes that causes some deterioration of its physical attributes. One of the said causes to this is the continuous emission of the gases of most vehicles. It is stated that this produced gases during acceleration can become very much harmful to the environment and it may lead to a more serious destruction if taken for granted.

             Part of the responsibility of an Automotive Engineer is to design an appropriate engine that will not only produce a good quality in terms of speed and endurance but also something that will surely benefit the users and the environment.  As of now, the tremendous technology evolution is considered as the backbone in this field. A lot of new ideas and designs are being collaborated with the concept of the automotive engineering. In this case, to be able to solve the problem regarding the harmful gas emission, the general idea from both automotive engineering and new technology should be combined analytically in order to come up with a right solution.

 

 

Introduction of the Problem Background

            The major cause of air pollution in the United Kingdom and rise of the world for more than a decade now has being directly attributed to the greater increase in the number of vehicles; Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (2006) stated that the number of cars on UK roads has increased by 1.8% compared with 2004, rising from 25,754,000 to 26,208,000. Overall, there are 32,897,000 vehicles registered for use on United Kingdom roads including cars, vans, taxis, buses and trucks. What this means is that with more vehicles on the road implies high percentage of air pollution, which is signal for attention. It then becomes glaring that the automotive industry and the student of automotive engineering, researchers need to look at a way to reduce the air pollution cause by vehicles exhausted gases.

            The main major problem here to dealt with is to do with complete throttle opening i.e. from 0 – full load, During full engine acceleration (full opening throttle), the inlet manifold absolute pressure send a signal to the Engine Control Unit (ECU) tells that the engine under full load, then the ECU send out signal to the fuel injectors to open and give maximum fuel at this time, this cause a rich fuel into the combustion chamber. However, because of the delay in air flow within the inlet manifold, there is less air mixing with fuel and this resulting to incomplete combustion, releasing Hydrocarbons (HC), Carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2) into the air as pollutants, which is dangerous to the environment.

 

Engineering Engine Pioneer

            Ricardo Inc. is the leading provider of engineering solutions and strategic consulting to the world’s automotive, transport and energy industries. They were able to take great challenges as year passed by including the business strategy and restructuring, process re-engineering, product design, development, engineering, testing and systems integration. The company is now well established as they have a network of advanced and well-equipped technical centers in the United Kingdom, North America, Germany and the Czech Republic. However, all this things just started with a young man’s simple fascination on engines. Sir Harry Ricardo spent his time creating and designing small engines when he was just 17 years old. Then in 1905, he came up with a business called The Two-stroke Engine Company which manufactures and sells a car. With his company, he introduces the “dolphin engine” which he designed himself. Later on, the concept about this new engine had make its way to the fishermen in Shoreham and found out that this dolphin engine is more reliable as it prolonged low speed operation. With this initial success, he continues to work on series of innovative engines. Since then, Ricardo has been recognized worldwide as on of the key developers of engine technology. Up to this point, Ricardo is still engaging with this kind of industry and still harnessing new technology and developments that will provide not only good quality of products but as well as proper strategic solutions and consultations.

            Today, Ricardo has remained their objectives as being the leading provider of quality engine world wide. They continue to gathered information and conduct further studies to be able to meet the demands uprising in the industry today due the rapid advancement of technology and the continuous changes in the environment.

 

Considering the Environment

            Just like people, vehicles are also everywhere. As the number of people increases, the number of vehicles also increases. In fact, today, these vehicles are being considered as one of the biggest cause of air pollution and it is also acclaim that driving a car is the most polluting act an average citizen can commit. The said pollution is due to the emission of the fuel engine of certain like carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons to name a few, which is obviously known as the primary causes of the ozone layers massive destruction. However, despite all the negativities that every vehicle is confronting, there are certain alternatives that engine manufacturers launched to be able to lessen the worsening condition of the environment.

            The evolution of the technology really provides a big help to the engine manufacturers because it made them come up with such great improvement regarding the engines performance. There are several devices that have been added to every engine to handle air flow in, fuel delivery and exhaust out. These engines may seem a lot more complicated for it involves a new emission control systems that requires electronic monitoring and further adjustments regarding the engine performance under different operating system. The design of each vehicle that was launched after the year 1996 have already standard port that allows a diagnostic computer access to information about engine performance. 

 

The New Wave

            Wave is the ideal tool. It was launched about twenty years ago but still used throughout the entire engine design process from the early concept of studies until the detailed investigation of the production engines. Wave is use worldwide in industry sectors including the passenger car, truck, motorcycle, marine, motor sport, locomotive and power generation. This software package by Ricardo enables performance simulations to be carried out based on any intake, combustion and exhaust system configuration. It also includes a drive train model to allow complete vehicle simulation.    

            The wave contains advanced combustion models for both diesel and standard issue engines. It also includes a suite of exhaust after treatment models for in-cylinder models. Moreover, this software is extensively used by manufacturers all over the world for its acoustic prediction of intake and exhaust noise. Wave is said to have an unmatched capability for acoustic modeling whether developing a more cost effective exhaust sound or just creating a premium brand exhaust sound.

            Regarding the thermal analysis, Wave has a 2D structural model that will show the engine structure and manifolds. This aspect simply provides an improved performance prediction with accurate engine and exhaust system heat extraction. The implementation of the exhaust system warm-up transient analysis is also made possible by this. Lastly, the software was designed to be very convenient for it features a dynamic system control which enables the easy access on the whole interface.

            The Wave v8.0 is the latest among the wave software that helps engine developers make sure that the designs will meet the fuel economy and emissions requirements.  Features like controls on canvas let the users manage all the control elements on the drag and drop basis. Also the Wave 3D or the 3D modeling feature provides integrated solution for 1D/3D co-simulation. In addition to that, users may also interact with Wave model while the simulation process is still running so that they can response immediately to changes.

 

Development of a Typical Automotive System

            Preliminary Analysis

                        To be able to utilize such development in the said engine, there should be concrete procedures to be followed to minimized encountering errors and to maintain an efficient solution to the required problem.  The first part of the process to have a preliminary analysis, this involves the necessary information related to the given problem.

                        Apparently, the problem here is how to come up with a solution that will penetrate the emission of such pathogens that they produce. Usually, this problem occurs because of the inappropriate design of the engine. An example of this is the two stroke engines that used to burn more oil-gasoline mixture and emit more smoke. Unlike the four stoke engines which are now the standard design for motorcycles.

                        Regarding the stated problem, the preliminary analysis may come up with an objective that sooner at the end of this paper it will be efficiently gratify. In this case, the aim of the study is to come up with a possible solution regarding the problem. In order to that do, an engine simulation using the Ricardo Wave shall be obtained.

 

            Detailed Design Analysis

                        The detailed design analysis will show some illustrations that will focuses on the specific design changes of the said system. Everything simulated in this part should be well detailed. It is very important to consider this because this can be very much helpful in the next procedure which is the prototyping and productionalization.  

 

            Prototyping and Productionalization

                        After acquiring all the necessary data needed, the final part is mostly about harnessing the end product. Having such prototypes allows engineers and designers a lot of time to explore more on the design alternatives prior to the initial production of the product. 

 

 

 

 

 

FIGURE I

 

 

            This figure shows the respond of the engine during the engine acceleration. The engine speed is proportional to the engine load.

 

 

 

FIGURE II

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            The second figure shows the drop of air and increase in fuel at the engine acceleration that makes more air pollutants.

 

 

 

A Typical Automotive Diesel Engine

TYPE OF ENGINE

4 Stroke Diesel

STROKE

82.0mm

BORE

78.1mm

NUMBER OF CYLINDERS

4

COMBUSTION SYSTEM

Direct Injection

COMPRESSION RATIO

22.0

 

 

           

             

           

 

 

 

            The data above shows a typical diesel engine. The number of cylinders in an engine indicates a very significant factor in the overall performance of the engine. A four-cylinder engine commonly comes in a straight or inline configurations shown in the figure below. Each cylinder contains a piston that pumps inside of it and those pistons are connected to and turn the crankshaft.  In short, the more pistons pumping, the more combustion is taking place and the more power is generated in less time.

 

 

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

Implementation of the Ricardo Wave

            Basically, an engine starts to work when combustion takes place. A car engine is an internal combustion engine. There are several kinds of internal combustion engine; the diesel engines and the gas turbine engines. In the latter, the gasoline is burn inside an engine to create a motion. Usually almost all cars today used the so-called four stroke combustion cycle to convert gasoline into motion. The initial process is the intake stroke. Here, the intake valve opens and the piston moves down to let the engine take in a cylinder that is full of air and gasoline. The tiniest drop of gasoline needs to be mixed into the air for the process take place. After the piston moves down, it will move back at the top again to compress the mixture of the fuel and the air. This next stage is the compression stroke, wherein ii makes the explosion more powerful. By trhe time the piston reaches the top, the spark plug emits a spark to ignite the gasoline. When this happen, the gasoline charge in the cylinder explodes and drives the piston down again. This is what they called the combustion stroke. And once the piston hits the bottom again, the exhaust valve opens and the exhaust leaves the cylinder to go out the tail pipe. The engine is now ready again for the next cycle.  

            Apparently, modern cars today are consists of catalytic converter, which is a collection of sensors and actuators, and a computer to monitor and adjust everything, then, this when the software Wave enters the process. The wave provides a 3D environment which enables designers and manufactures to come up with a detailed simulation of the engine. They can easy utilize some potential enhancements to the engine itself without engaging more in a more complicated procedure.

 

Conclusion

            It is true that the technology really have its advantages and disadvantages. The outcome of which will only depend on the how it would be implemented. If we try to view things over, the air pollution due to the emission of gases is a just a result of the advances of technology. However, because man’s thinking is boundless and unpredictable, they can even come up with such solutions that will each problem.

            When the software Wave was launched by Ricardo plc, it brought the engine designing into another level. With their much improved concept, engineers and designers become more aggressive in inputting a certain trend that will compromise the demand of each client regarding the design that will soon neutralized the increasing problem in pollution.

 

 

 

Reference

 

Brain, M.(n.d.) How Car Engine Work.[Online]. Available at   http://auto.howstuffworks.com/engine3.htm [accessed 24 July 2008]

 

           

Environmental Research Inc. Cars, Air Pollution and Health. [Online]. Available at http://www.nutramed.com/environment/cars.htm [accessed 23 July 2008]

 

 

McManus J. and Anderson S.,” Creating the Virtual Vehicle Today” (n.d.), Available  from http://www.ricardo.com/download/pdf/wave_virtual_vehicle_model.pdf

 

Rapid Prototyping.2008. Online Encyclopedia.[Online]. Available at http://www.encyclopedia.com [accessed 23 July 2008]

 

 

Ricardo Company. [Online]. Available at http://www.ricardo.com/default.aspx [accessed 23 July 2008]

 

 

Waltham Forest.Air Quality – Vehicle Emission. [Online]. Available at http://www.walthamforest.gov.uk/index/environment/pollution/env-air-quality/air-quality-vehicle-emissions.htm [accessed 23 July 2008]

 

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