Swirl effect on the flame propagation at idle in a spark ignition engine

The objectives of the study are to investigate the effect of swirl on the flame propagation and to propose a flame propagation model that predicts the behavior of the flame front in the presence of significant swirl flow field by analyzing flame images pictured with a high speed digital video at idle. The velocity distribution of the charge in the cylinder was measured using an LDV measurement system. From the experimental results and analyses, a new flame propagation model is proposed in which flame frontal locations can be traced by superposing the convective flow field and the uniform expansion speed of the burned gas. and the proposed model reveals that the increase of the flame propagation speed in the presence of swirl motion within 1 ms after ignition is mainly due to the flame stretch, and mainly due to increased turbulence intensity later than 1 ms after ignition.