Asked 5 years ago

Prashanth Muthu

 1.72
 Independent Researcher

How can I calculate exhaust gas flow in an

IC engine?
I need to calculate the exhaust gas flow theoretically.

Internal Combustion Engines

Gas Flow

Mechanical Engineering
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Popular Answers (2)

5 years ago
David Johnson
Added an answer
As a first approximation, you can calculate how much air is aspirated at the inlet. For this one needs to know the
engine speed and volumetric efficiency at that point. The theoretical volume aspirated is the engine displacement x
speed / strokes (2 for 2 stroke and 4 for 4 stroke). This flow is reduced by the volumetric efficiency.

Once you have this one has to compute the exhaust gas composition (H2O, CO2, CO, NOx, N2 and O2) and
determine the exhaust gas temperature. From here one can get a good estimate of what the volume flow is (from the
gas properties). The flow speed, of course, is the volume flow divided by the cross section.

The mass flow is simple, as the output is equal to the combined inputs (aspirated air + fuel) There is a little mass
"lost" due to leaks past valves and cylinder rings., but this can usually be ignored.

 5 Recommendations

3 years ago
Gurjap Singh
University of Iowa
Do you know the displacement of the engine? And the RPM it's running on?

If displacement is L cu. meters and rpm is R, you get L * R cu.meter per minute coming out of the engine if it's a 2
stroke, L * R/2 if it's a 4 stroke.
 4 Recommendations

All Answers (11)

5 years ago
Amin Nasim
Iran University of Science and Technology
Maybe you can do it simply using a bag, considering the time & the volume of the bag! Even theorically

5 years ago
Jonathan Brulatout
École de Technologie Supérieure
Do you have all geometical caracteristics and running conditions of your engine? Like speed, piston diameter etc

 1 Recommendation

5 years ago
David Johnson
Added an answer
As a first approximation, you can calculate how much air is aspirated at the inlet. For this one needs to know the
engine speed and volumetric efficiency at that point. The theoretical volume aspirated is the engine displacement x
speed / strokes (2 for 2 stroke and 4 for 4 stroke). This flow is reduced by the volumetric efficiency.

Once you have this one has to compute the exhaust gas composition (H2O, CO2, CO, NOx, N2 and O2) and
determine the exhaust gas temperature. From here one can get a good estimate of what the volume flow is (from the
gas properties). The flow speed, of course, is the volume flow divided by the cross section.

The mass flow is simple, as the output is equal to the combined inputs (aspirated air + fuel) There is a little mass
"lost" due to leaks past valves and cylinder rings., but this can usually be ignored.

 5 Recommendations

5 years ago
Balaji Mohan
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
By principle of conservation of mass, you can theoretically assume

ma+mf = me

where, ma - mass flow rate of air into the cylinder, mf - mass flow rate of fuel injected into the cylinder and me - mass
flow rate of exhaust gas

There will be some leakages through clearances as David mentioned however, it is very negligible.
 2 Recommendations

5 years ago
Nenad Vulic
Pomorski Fakultet Split
Exactly this approach (ma+mf=me) has been implemented in the IMO MARPOL NOx Technical Code 2008. The idea
is simple: what enters the engine in unit time-air for combustion and fuel oil (estomated from SFOC). What gets out in
unit time-exhaust gases and kinetic energy of rotation; energy has no mass). If ma+mf>me then the engine will gain
weight, if ma+mf<me it will lose weight. Neither is the case, so it must be: ma+mf=me. This is in fact trivial, but
essential to understand mentioned IMO Code. Hth

 1 Recommendation

4 years ago
Mohammed Saber Gad
Fayoum University
you should know the mass flow rate of air and mass flow rate of fuel and ignoring the leakage

 1 Recommendation

4 years ago
Prashanth Muthu
Independent Researcher
the sum of airflow in(kg/hr)and fuel flow in kg/hr

Gexh=Gair+Gfuel

 1 Recommendation

4 years ago
Hasan Kayhan Kayadelen
Yildiz Technical University
You may simulate the engine combustion by using a chemical equilibrium code which will give the mole fractions and
also mole numbers of the species i.e exhaust gas composition.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016236113005140

 1 Recommendation
 4 years ago
Joseph F McDonald
United States Environmental Protection Agency
Exhaust flow for a particular condition can be calculated using engine simulation code such as GTPower. John
Heywood's "Internal Combustion Engine Fundamentals" shows a relatively simple quasi-steady-state approximation
for engine cylinder air flow based on cylinder volume, engine speed, and air density at a constant air temperature.

Experimentally, in addition to the afformentioned experimental measurement of air-flow and fuel-flow, exhaust gas
flow can also be calculated by measuring air-flow and measuring exhaust oxygen content with a wide-band zirconia
oxygen sensor. An oxygen balance calculation based upon oxygen sensor data can then be used to calculate fuel
mass flow fairly precisely from air mass flow even for highly transient engine operation.

 2 Recommendations

3 years ago
Gurjap Singh
University of Iowa
Do you know the displacement of the engine? And the RPM it's running on?

If displacement is L cu. meters and rpm is R, you get L * R cu.meter per minute coming out of the engine if it's a 2
stroke, L * R/2 if it's a 4 stroke.

 4 Recommendations

2 years ago
David Neihguk
Bombardier
A good empirical formula can be obtained from the SAE Standard as well as ISO standard number ISO 5011

http://standards.sae.org/j726_200206/

http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=64762

Regards,

David
How To Calculate Mass Flow Rate Of Engine
Exhaust ?
Posted Date: 05 Dec 2011 |Updated: 05-Dec-2011 |Category: How things work |Author: N Gautam|Member
Level: Gold |Points: 5 |

This article is about the steps and formula used in calculation of the mass flow
rate of engine exhaust. The calculations of mass flow rate is very important and
these can be used as input for oxiometers and catalytic converters. Though there
are some electronic devices to calculate mass flow rate this method depicts a
way of manual calculation which can be handy. The mass flow rate calculation
is shown and explained with a neat example.

Engine exhaust mass flow rate determination

The mass flow rate calculation is proceeded with example and factors are assumed. So
calculation is done by following assumptions.

Assumptions:

1. Two cylinder 1500 cc engine.

2. Flywheel rotation = 1500 rpm.
3. Exhaust pressure = 3 to 4 bar.
4. Exhaust temperature = 450K to 800 K.

1. So, for 1500 rpm when converted into rps => 1500/60 = 25 rps.

2. Also it is known that for 2 revolutions of flywheel the entire cylinder is emptied,
meaning 1500 cc is going out of engine for 2 revolutions.

3. Therefore for 1 revolution 750 cc is going out of cylinder.

4. Thus the volume flow rate is seen to be = 750x25 = 18750 cc/sec.

5. Now the density is found by using the formula:

l=p/RT i.e. 4e5/ (287x773) = 1.8 kg/m 3. Therefore the mass flow rate is the product of
(volume flow rate) x (density). It indicates the mass flow rate to be = .0337 kg/sec.

So MASS FLOW RATE m=0.0337 kg/sec.

In this above calculations all the parameters are assumed and they are not constant.
Hence it is advised to use respective values of calculations for these factors.