Features of Three-Dimensional Thermal State Modeling of a Rotary Piston Engine

The paper considers the features of three-dimensional modeling of the thermal state of rotary piston engine (RPE) components in Ansys Fluent software. It is shown that a well-developed computational and experimental basis has been established for internal combustion piston engines (ICEs), whereas no unified methodology currently exists for RPEs that accounts for rotor motion and the nonuniform nature of heat transfer. A transient CFD modeling methodology is proposed using user-defined functions, a dynamic computational mesh, the Realizable k–ε turbulence model, the Finite Rate/Eddy Dissipation combustion model, and conjugate heat transfer between the gas, solid, and liquid domains. The methodology provides the pressure, temperature, and gas velocity fields, as well as temperature fields of engine components. Validation against experimental pressure and temperature data confirms the applicability of the proposed approach for engineering assessment of the thermal state and subsequent strength calculations.