Ford Intake Ports Report
Ford Intake Ports Report
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SUMMARY
This report aims to describe the steps taken to optimise a generic automotive intake port geometry
for mass flow rate under a given pressure drop using CFD.
A series of 11 unique parameters have been defined using SculptorTM together another 4
parameters which have been defined as functions of these. The cross-sectional area of the intake
port was also constrained to within +/- 15% of the baseline geometry during the optimisation.
An in-house code has been used to define an initial set of experiments based on a Latin
Hypercube sampling technique. A response surface approach has then been used to identify areas
of the design space that require refinement and subsequently has predicted an optimum design
that is situated within the bounds of the cross-sectional area constraint.
A total of 124 runs were solved as part of the study and an overall gain of 1.94% was found within
the prescribed limits.
Advantage CFD
Reynard Park, Brackley, Northants, NN13 7RP, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1280 846806 Fax: +44 (0)1280 846822
www.advantage-cfd.co.uk
CONTENTS
SUMMARY 1
1. INTRODUCTION 3
2. SCULPTOR METHODOLOGY 6
4. RESULTS 16
5. CONCLUSIONS 23
6. APPENDIX A 24
A total pressure inlet of 0 Pa was used on the plenum inlet and a pressure outlet of –16.9kPa was
applied to the exit. All analyses were carried out at a single valve lift of 10.0mm and used the
standard k-ε turbulence model with non-equilibrium wall functions. The volume mesh was fully
tetrahedral and contained 2.7 million cells
The CFD model was supplied by a third party to demonstrate the use of SculptorTM to this type of
application and is shown in Figure 1.
A series of 11 individual parameters were defined to modify the geometry of the intake port. These
variables, DV1 to DV11 are identified in Figure 2 to Figure 4 together with 4 additional variables,
DVTEMP1 to DVTEMP4, that are defined as functions of DV1 to DV11.
The cross-sectional area of the port is measured in the two locations identified in Figure 5. The
optimisation was constrained so that the areas of the final optimum were within +\- 15% of the
baseline.
DV11
DV7 DV8
TEMPDV3 TEMPDV4
DV9
DV10 DV11
Section z - z
Section y - y
Generate Fluent
case file (*.cas)
No
Add planes and buffer planes Can the deformation/mesh be
Yes
improved by…
No
Group control points Yes …re-grouping control
No
Apply transformation Yes …altering Co-efficients?
No
Deform geometry Is deformation satisfactory?
Yes
Output Designs
Once the CFD volume mesh has been imported into SculptorTM (in this instance a FLUENT case
file – see Figure 6) it is possible to begin constructing the ASD (Arbitrary Shape Deformation)
volumes around the geometry. These ASD volumes provide the basis for the deformations.
Figure 7 shows the initial stage of defining the first ASD volume around the runner. This volume is
intended to make the deformations specified in Figure 3.
Essentially an initial box is described around the boundary zone of interest that is then positioned
using tools within SculptorTM. This ASD volume is then subdivided (or extended) with a series of
planes. The nodes at intersections of the planes are later used to control the deformation of the
geometry.
Any geometry/volume mesh that sits outside of the ASD volume is not modified so it is possible to
isolate changes to an accurately defined volume.
The further subdivision of the initial ASD is shown in Figure 8. The positioning of the ASD planes
close to the FLUENT boundary zone can also be identified.
The next stage in the Sculptor™ process is to create relationships between the nodes within the
ASD volume to define parameters that deform the geometry as required.
These nodes are initially selected by the user (shown in yellow and highlighted in Figure 10) and
grouped together. Each group of points can later be translated, scaled or rotated in either cartesian
or parametric space.
In addition to this it is possible to add coefficients to each individual point within a group. This
allows points to be moved in diagonal directions or to be moved in different directions to the other
points in a group just using a single parameter. An example of this is shown in Figure 11 where a
single parameter has been used to define a powerful change to the geometry.
There was some iteration of these groups and the position of the planes before suitable
parameters were defined.
Before these deformations can be made however the ASD volume must be ‘frozen’. This process
maps the nodes within the FLUENT case file to the parametric co-ordinates of the ASD volume
allowing distortion of the ASD to deform the FLUENT volume mesh smoothly and interactively.
Once the volume has been frozen it is possible to deform the geometry with each of the
parameters. Before an optimisation can begin bounds need to be defined for each parameter.
These bounds are generally a function of geometrical constraints (such as restrictions to the
design space) or cell volume/skewness limits.
Currently, the best way to find these limits is to make a range of changes to a parameter and then
check the case in FLUENT or TGrid to ascertain the acceptable range of movement. An in-built
skewness and cell volume checker is in development for Sculptor™ as is collision detection with
constraint surface which will improve the speed of this process.
The deformations made to the FLUENT case file are distributed extremely smoothly to the volume
mesh. Figure 12 shows an example of a deformation made to the thickness of a wing section.
Advantage CFD VA178 INTAKE PORT OPTIMISATION ISSUE #1 11
Figure 12 – Example of volume mesh deformation
The other ASD volumes were generated in a similar way to that specified for the runner. Figure 13
and Figure 14 show the ASD volumes around the port junction and the port itself respectively. Of
note is the way in which the planes have been positioned around the valve to ensure that the stem
is only moved by a negligible amount.
A breakdown of the time taken for each of the stages involved in generating the ASD volume
around the various components and defining the parameters is shown in Table 1.
Once the 11 parameters had been defined and tested it was possible to design a series of
experiments that would allow a relationship between these parameters and the performance of the
intake port to be calculated.
It was calculated that at least 75 initial experiments would be required in order to solve the
coefficients of a second order response surface. An in-house code was used to define 77
experiments by means of a Latin hypercube sampling method.
Using a piece of in-house code the combination of the 11 parameters for the initial 77 experiments
were converted into a series of journal files for Sculptor. From these it was possible to automate
the generation of these 77 cases from Sculptor™ in batch mode thus removing the need for any
human input.
In-house scripts were also used to automate the checking of each case for negative volume cells
and high skewness, the generation of a FLUENT journal for each case and the processing of
results.
To create, check and process all of these cases took less than 3 man-hours in total.
Significant computational time reductions were possible as each experiment could be started from
the converged solution of the baseline. As only the node co-ordinates in the volume mesh are
modified and not the connectivity or CFD setup then reconverging the solution is possible.
Reconverging the solution reduced the number of iterations required to get to a steady mass flow
from approximately 4000 to 500 – a saving of nearly 90% of the time taken to solve each
experiment.
Throughout the optimisation process the 11 parameters were optimised for maximum mass flow
rate through the system. During the majority of this process the variation in the cross-sectional
area was ignored. This allowed the design space to be populated in both ‘illegal’ and ‘legal’
designs, which improved the accuracy of the response surface near the limits of the design space.
The cross-sectional area constraints were only applied in the final stage of the optimisation.
The mass flow rate for each of the different runs in the optimisation process is shown in Figure 15
with the 4 different stages are identified with different colours. After the initial experiments defined
by the latin hypercube (shown in blue) two refinement stages were used to improve the resolution
of the response surface in the regions of predicted maxima and minima. Then a final search stage
(shown in red) was used to assess the predicted global maxima.
Note that it was only in this final search stage that the cross-sectional area constraints were
applied.
-0.215
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BASELINE BASELINE
-0.208
Mass flow (kg/s)
-0.205
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-0.200
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-0.193
-0.190
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Run Number
Initial DOE Refinement-1 Refinement-2 Maximum Search
Figure 16 compares the mass flow for the baseline and the optimum geometry found within the
cross-sectional area constraints (Run 123). These results are for both geometries run from an
initialised solution in Fluent for 4000 iterations with the same setup.
Mass Flow
(kg/s)
Baseline 0.2094
RUN123 0.2135
% change 1.94%
A comparison of the mass flow rate convergence history for the two cases is shown in Figure 18.
-0.23
-0.22
-0.21
Baseline
-0.20 Run 123
-0.19
-0.18
-0.17
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000
Figure 19 shows the variation in performance for each of the 11 parameters. For each curve the
parameter is varied between its maximum and minimum value whilst all other variables are kept in
the optimum position.
-0.2125
-0.2120
DV1
-0.2115
DV2
DV3
-0.2110
Mass flow (kg/s)
DV4
DV5
-0.2105
DV6
-0.2100 DV7a
DV8a
-0.2095 DV9a
DV10a
-0.2090 DV11a
-0.2085
-0.02 -0.015 -0.01 -0.005 0 0.005 0.01 0.015
Parameter value
Details of the variation in performance for 2 interacting parameters can be found in APPENDIX A.
A comparison of the original and optimised geometries is shown in Figure 20 and Figure 21. The
cross-section of the runner has been increased in all directions but well within the limits of the
design space. Around the port the cross-section has been dramatically reduced in the region near
the centreline of the bore (Figure 21) and increased slightly on the opposite side. Figure 17 shows
that the cross-sectional area here is reduced to the minimum possible within the constraints.
Figure 22 to Figure 25 identify different aspects of the flow structure for the baseline and optimum.
Figure 22 compares the velocity profile between the valve and the seat for the two cases
Isosurfaces of velocity cutaway through the centre of a valve are shown in Figure 23 and surface
contours of static pressure are shown in Figure 24. Figure 25 shows the flow direction local to the
intake port surface using oilflow and total pressure contours.
Figure 25 - Comparison of oilflow and total pressure on the surface of the two intake ports
Table 2 shows both the man time and CPU time involved in this phase of the optimisation. The
total duration of these stages was less than one week, including solve time (more than one
12xCPU PC-array was used at some stages).
Time Summary (for all 124 cases) Man time CPU time
The following conclusions can be made about the process used in this study:
• The geometry of a generic automotive intake port has been successfully modified to
increase the mass flow for a given pressure drop by 1.94% whilst staying within a +/- 15%
cross-sectional area constraint in the runner and port. The entire process was possible in
just over a week.
• Sculptor™ has enabled the definition of 11 parameters to deform the case file directly so no
re-meshing has been necessary. The process of defining and refining the ASD volume and
parameters for this complex problem has taken approximately 2 man days.
• The generation of these cases has been automated using Sculptor™ in batch mode and a
series of scripts reducing the man-time taken to produce each subsequent design to a
matter of seconds.
• Latin hypercube sampling has been used to define a set of experiments based on the 11
parameters defined. A response surface method was then used to predict a global maxima.
• A total of 124 cases were run to optimise the 11 parameters.
• All experiments were reconverged from the baseline data file reducing the number of
iterations required from 4000 to 500 thus cutting the computational requirement by 90%
Figure 26 to Figure 30 show where the two parameters are both increased at the same rate
between their limits. Figure 31 to Figure 35 show where one parameter is being increased whilst
the other is decreased.
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increasing DV5 with decreasing DV4
increasing DV3 with decreasing DV4
-0.21 increasing DV2 with decreasing DV4
increasing DV6 with decreasing DV4
increasing DV11a with decreasing DV4
-0.209 increasing DV9a with decreasing DV4
increasing DV10a with decreasing DV4
increasing DV8a with decreasing DV4
-0.208 increasing DV7a with decreasing DV4
increasing DV1 with decreasing DV4
increasing DV3 with decreasing DV5
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