Using VizSpark to Model Electrical Discharge in Combustion Engines

Jun 10, 2022

Argonne National Laboratory represents the United States’ Department of Energy’s commitment to cooperative research and scientific discovery. Since its inception in 1946, Argonne has pioneered laboratory research and experimentation as the first national laboratory in the United States. While a significant amount of research in the decades following its founding centered around nuclear energy and applications, Argonne has transitioned from nuclear research to include additional energy sources and storage since the beginning of the 21st century. Now, Argonne constitutes a scientific community of leading researchers, with projects across a spectrum of computational, quantum, and interdisciplinary fields.

Among the contributors in this area are Dr. Joohan Kim and Dr. Riccardo Scarcelli. Their work on modeling spark discharge processes in spark-ignition (SI) engines was recently recognized by Argonne. Dr. Kim received a Postdoctoral Performance Award in the area of Engineering Research, along with ten other postdoctoral appointees whose contributions set a standard not only for the quality of their discoveries, but also for the ingenuity of their techniques and demonstrated leadership capabilities. According to Argonne, awardees’ works have upheld core values of scientific impact, integrity, respect, safety, and teamwork.

Within the highly competitive automotive industry, the need for innovation through design presents opportunities for new tools and technologies to be utilized. Regulations from governing entities seek to strike a balance between meeting climate goals through greater restrictions on CO2 emissions from automobiles, while relying on the transportation industry and automotives to fuel trade and commerce. With restrictions focused solely on reducing emissions, applications that meet these criteria without sacrificing capabilities stands out for both manufacturers and legislators alike.

Dr. Kim’s work highlights the need for predictive models which can optimize operational parameters for SI systems in order to maximize thermal efficiency gain and lower engine development costs. Creating these predictive models requires advanced simulation software capable of solving and coupling electromagnetic physics and fluid dynamics into a computational framework. When we asked about his use of simulations, Dr. Kim said, “high-fidelity simulations enable us to perform in-depth analysis of the spark-ignition process, including energy transfer, birth of flame kernel, and thermo-chemical properties; these would be difficult to obtain using experimental techniques only.” He went on to add that, “with a fundamental understanding of complex physics, we can develop predictive models that make simulation-based optimization robust and reliable.”

“VizSpark provided a fully-coupled framework between electromagnetic physics and fluid dynamics, and thereby we were able to diagnose the plasma properties occurring within tens of nanoseconds without many assumptions.”

Dr. Kim’s study utilized VizSpark simulations to accurately estimate electrical discharge shape, as well as temperature and pressure of plasma kernels, thus providing a set of robust initial and boundary conditions for studying flame kernel growth under engine-like conditions. He noted “VizSpark provided a fully-coupled framework between electromagnetic physics and fluid dynamics, and thereby we were able to diagnose the plasma properties occurring within tens of nanoseconds without many assumptions.”

VizSpark is a robust, industrial simulation tool for high-fidelity modeling of thermal (arc) plasmas. Additionally, VizSpark is fully parallelized and can be used to perform large, 3D simulations with complex geometries. Its comprehensive solvers and scalability make it ideal for solving real world engineering problems.

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