Maths software aids engine design
A
Maplesoft product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Oct 8, 2007
New anti-pollution legislation has made it mandatory for all manufacturers of portable machinery to adopt new standards and to thoroughly review the technologies currently being used in engines.
Emak has employed Maple mathematics software to develop new "clean" engines.
Maple is used to simulate and predict performance and emissions, which plays a direct role in increasing the engine's efficiency and reducing time to market.
Emak is an Italian company specialising in the design, manufacturing, and marketing of portable machinery.
Emak produces garden machine tools such as chainsaws, brush cutters, lawnmowers, hedge trimmers, and water pumps.
The garden machine tools have a single-cylinder engine, which is generally two-stroke.
New anti-pollution legislation has made it mandatory for all manufacturers of portable machinery to adopt new standards and to thoroughly review the technologies currently being used in engines.
As a result, Emak has had to invest considerable resources in research to aid in the development of "clean" engines with a low level of polluting emissions.
Emak chose Maple as a simulation tool for engines in order to optimise performance, increase efficiency and improve design.
As a first step, Maple was used to develop a one-dimensional code to predict engine performance and emissions.
"Using Maple, the engineers were able to drastically reduce the time typically spent on multiple trials and fine tuning", said Marco Ferrari, Engineering Manager of Emak.
"Moreover, Maple's graphical interface makes reading the data easier, especially the 3D diagrams which help us to understand and interpret what is going on inside the engine".
The engine's geometric parameters, obtained from a first computation, are entered into the code.
Maple is used to obtain various parameters such as pressure, outflow, and temperature in each individual pipe.
It is then possible to adjust the cycle to each engine speed and to obtain power, consumption, and efficiency curves which are compared with benchmarked data.
In addition to finding the thermodynamic characteristics, this process also determines the loads that are generated on the various components of the crank drive, piston, connecting rod and drive shaft.
These readings are essential for the subsequent structural verification of the components using an FEM analysis.
By comparing the geometric parameters with the experimental data, the physical phenomena that occur inside the engine can be described mathematically.
Empirical mathematical models to describe certain phenomena typical of two-stroke engines have been developed with Maple through tests carried out in the Research and Development department.
By using Maple, Emak has achieved high computation accuracy, with an average error of 7%.
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