Abstract
The design and development of moving parts (such as the crankshaft, valve train and timing drive) for high performance gasoline engines poses many special problems. The use of appropriate CAE tools is essential if competitive engines are to be developed within acceptable timescales.
Ricardo have experience in the design and development of high performance gasoline engines. That experience is fed back into the development of new CAE tools for use on problems involving system dynamics and the design of the major moving parts. This paper describes some Ricardo software tools and gives examples of the successful use of these tools at the design stage and in conjunction with tests during engine development.
The choice of modelling method is vital. Simple methods are useful when many options must be assessed rapidly or when great uncertainty surrounds many of the input values. Detailed models are useful for the final verification of dimensions and for investigation of failures.
In recent years the ease of use and the solution speed of the software, particularly VALDYN, has enabled the use of dynamic analysis of valve trains, timing drives and even whole engine systems during the concept design stage. This has brought huge benefit as dynamic problems have been identified, quantified and potentially solved at the earliest possible stage.