Numerical Simulation of Pressure Wave Supercharger with Pockets Operating at Different Speeds

Abstract

Pressure wave supercharger is an application of wave rotor technology that utilizes compression waves produced by high-pressure engine exhaust gas to compress the fresh intake air within the channels. The phenomena within the wave rotor channels are governed by compression and expansion waves initiated when the channel ends are periodically exposed to differing pressure ports. Two incoming fluids are brought into contact for a very short amount of time to facilitate efficient energy and momentum transfer, thereby exchanging pressure dynamically between the fluids by means of unsteady pressure waves. Since the energy transfer is based on unsteady pressure waves, correct matching of waves and ports is essential for optimum results. Mistiming of the waves in the channels is detrimental to the efficient exchange of pressure and low-pressure exhaust scavenging, which ensures minimum exhaust gas recirculation. Due to varying speed and load conditions of the unit to be supercharged, it is not always possible to maintain the rotor speed constant at the design point. To mitigate the effects of wave mistiming due to varying speed, a well-designed combination of wall-pockets was used in Comprex® pressure wave supercharger. The wall-pockets are the recesses provided in the endplates of pressure wave superchargers to create necessary pressure zones at desired locations. This thesis details an extensive qualitative and computational investigation of the performance of pressure wave superchargers with pockets. Numerical simulations of pressure wave superchargers have been performed using the wave rotor analysis codes employed at the Combustion and Propulsion Research Laboratory at IUPUI. This work also pays close attention to inspecting the numerical schemes and modeling of different physical phenomena used in each code. A comparative verification of the wave rotor analysis codes has been conducted to ensure that the same fundamental numerical scheme is correctly implemented in each code. The issue of low-pressure scavenging has been demonstrated by simulating the four-port (pocketless) pressure wave supercharger operating at lower speeds. The wall-pockets have been modeled using a simple lumped volume technique. The gas state in the lumped volume of pockets is estimated using the continuity and energy equations such that the net mass and energy fluxes between each pocket and the wave rotor channels are close to zero. The lumped volume models of pockets have been implemented in the four-port wave rotor configurations to simulate the pressure wave superchargers with pockets. The simulation results show that the pockets assist to maintain sufficient pressure in the desired zones to facilitate proper low-pressure scavenging during lower rotor speed operations. The Comprex simulation results have been observed to be in good agreement with experimental data and qualitative analysis. Specific observations on the performance of each code and comprehensive simulation results have been presented.