ACCESS Manifold System Design
ACCESS Manifold System Design from Theerapat Yangyuenthanasan
ACCESS Manifold System Design

The Advanced Controllable Combustion - Enabling Systems and Solutions (ACCESS) is an engine consulting project sponsored by the University of Michigan in partnership with Bosch, Department of Energy, and AVL. The main purposes for this research are to implement engine boosting, downsizing, and multi-mode combustion to
- achieve a 25% reduction in fuel consumption
- maintain vehicle performance, and
- meet Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicle (SULEV) emissions standards.

I got an opportunity to work on a part of this project on my senior design project, together with my teammates, Oscar Bustamante, Marc-Andre Henry, and Steven Upplegger. The scope of the senior design is to investigate the exhaust residual mal-distribution in the engine HCCI combustion mode. To approach this problem, we initially obtained and analyzed the testing data. We then designed, analyzed, tested our suggest exhaust manifold. Finally, we compare results between our design and the benchmark exhaust manifold.

To study the flow restriction of the stock exhaust manifold for benchmarking, we remodeled the exhaust manifold using NX CAD software. The challenge lies on achieving the most accurate CAD as compared to the physical prototype. After then, I ran a steady state CFD simulation for the flowbench test. Then we compared the results with those of four other different manifold design concepts that we designed in CAD. These simulations saved us time and resource to designing the optimal manifold shape, by bypassing the fabrications and physical tests for the less optimal designs.
An 3D printed stock manifold was tested on the flowbench to compare the effect of the surface finishing on the flow restriction with the stock cast manifold. After we found the results, we then continued on to fabricating the conceptually optimal manifold by tube bending and welding the stainless steel tubes. Then we again tested the optimal manifold on the flowbench to physically obtain the flow restriction measurements and compare it with the stock manifold.
Flowbench was used for testing the steady state flow restriction on different exhaust manifold designs.
Cutting edge engine dynamometer test facility at the University of Michigan autolab was used to obtain the thermodynamics data. To compare the performance of different manifolds on the real engine, we first validated the GT Power engine simulation model with the data obtained from the dynamometer test. After the model is validated, we used it to improve our exhaust manifold designs before start fabricating. Then we validated our final results of the manifold simulation again with that of the fabricated part in the dynamometer test.
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ACCESS Manifold System Design

The Advanced Controllable Combustion - Enabling Systems and Solutions (ACCESS) is an engine consulting project sponsored by the University of Michigan in partnership with Bosch, Department of Energy, and AVL. The main purposes for this research are to implement engine boosting, downsizing, and multi-mode combustion to
- achieve a 25% reduction in fuel consumption
- maintain vehicle performance, and
- meet Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicle (SULEV) emissions standards.

I got an opportunity to work on a part of this project on my senior design project, together with my teammates, Oscar Bustamante, Marc-Andre Henry, and Steven Upplegger. The scope of the senior design is to investigate the exhaust residual mal-distribution in the engine HCCI combustion mode. To approach this problem, we initially obtained and analyzed the testing data. We then designed, analyzed, tested our suggest exhaust manifold. Finally, we compare results between our design and the benchmark exhaust manifold.

Theerapat Yangyuenthanasan
Mechanical Design Engineer at U. S. Bionics Berkeley, CA