Experimental and Numerical Analysis of a Motorcycle Air Intake System Aerodynamics and Performance

Authors

  • M. A. Abd Halim Aeronautics Laboratory, School of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai Johor, Malaysia
  • N. A. R. Nik Mohd Aeronautics Laboratory, School of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai Johor, Malaysia
  • M. N. Mohd Nasir Aeronautics Laboratory, School of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai Johor, Malaysia
  • M. N. Dahalan Aeronautics Laboratory, School of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai Johor, Malaysia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15282/ijame.17.1.2020.10.0565

Keywords:

CFD, Flow bench, performance, airbox, motorcycle

Abstract

Induction system or also known as the breathing system is a sub-component of the internal combustion system that supplies clean air for the combustion process. A good design of the induction system would be able to supply the air with adequate pressure, temperature and density for the combustion process to optimizing the engine performance. The induction system has an internal flow problem with a geometry that has rapid expansion or diverging and converging sections that may lead to sudden acceleration and deceleration of flow, flow separation and cause excessive turbulent fluctuation in the system. The aerodynamic performance of these induction systems influences the pressure drop effect and thus the engine performance. Therefore, in this work, the aerodynamics of motorcycle induction systems is to be investigated for a range of Cubic Feet per Minute (CFM). A three-dimensional simulation of the flow inside a generic 4-stroke motorcycle airbox were done using Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solver in ANSYS Fluent version 11. The simulation results are validated by an experimental study performed using a flow bench. The study shows that the difference of the validation is 1.54% in average at the total pressure outlet. A potential improvement to the system have been observed and can be done to suit motorsports applications.

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Published

2020-03-30

How to Cite

[1]
M. A. Abd Halim, N. A. R. Nik Mohd, M. N. Mohd Nasir, and M. N. Dahalan, “Experimental and Numerical Analysis of a Motorcycle Air Intake System Aerodynamics and Performance”, Int. J. Automot. Mech. Eng., vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 7607–7617, Mar. 2020.