Simulations on Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Titan could help Ford Motor Company and other automobile manufacturers meet increasingly stringent fuel economy and emissions standards. The ORNL team is working with Ford to leverage expertise in computational science and engine technologies to develop a method that identifies combustion instability, which can occur if the engine is getting too much air or recirculated exhaust gases. Used in the right ratios, however, they can significantly improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions. “In the past, researchers had to rely on highly simplified engine models to simulate the thousands of consecutive engine cycles needed to study the cycle-to-cycle variability with statistical accuracy,” said Dean Edwards, who leads the ORNL team. Now, however, concurrent simulations run on Titan allow researchers to use highly detailed models while avoiding exceedingly long computation times. Results will be available to industry.
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