CFD Study on Pressure Drop and Uniformity Index of Three Cylinder LCV Exhaust System

AbstractThe current scenario of high growth rate of automobile usage, the automobile industry is forced to adopt the government emission norms to keep the environment green. Latest technologies have been developed in the automotive exhaust system to acknowledge the emission norms. Diesel oxidation catalyst and Muffler both are playing major roles in reducing emission and noise level as well. Diesel oxidation catalyst reduces CO and unburned HC emissions. Muffler reduces noise level of exhaust gases. Nowadays automobile industry is using CFD software extensively to analyze the flow properties inside the diesel oxidation catalyst and Muffler. Flow analysis helps to optimize the geometric design of Diesel oxidation catalyst to oxidize the CO and unburned HC of exhaust gases. In this present work we studied pressure drop and uniformity index of an existing exhaust system which consists of close couple catalytic convertor, under body catalytic convertor and muffler. Exhaust system has been modelled by using CATIA V5 which is advanced CAD software. The substrate has been modelled as porous medium for analysis purpose. These models have been imported in CFD tool for analysis. After importing the CAD data inside the CFD software, with proper boundary conditions, the CFD analysis has been carried out. Based on the study, individual system contributions to the total pressure drop and flow uniformity have been analyzed and improvement areas of the existing system for better flow uniformity have been suggested