Engine cylinder block cooling passage

Abstract: A cylinder block (10) of an internal combustion engine (12) includes a cylinder bore (14). The cylinder bore (14) has a cooling passage (18) surrounding it that extends along the cylinder bore (14) for a substantial portion of a piston stroke. The cooling passage (18) near the top end (28) of the block (10) is wider than at the bottom of the passage (18). The lower portion of the passage (18) tapers sufficiently that viscous drag affects the velocity within the coolant passage (18), the velocity varying in a direction normal to the general direction of coolant flow.

Description: The present invention relates to an engine having cooling passages extending around its engine cylinders within the cylinder block. Generally, engine cylinder blocks are cooled by a liquid coolant in a coolant passage, or jacket, that extends from the top or near the top of the cylinder block down roughly as far as the piston travels (100 percent piston stroke), and surrounds each of the cylinders. The coolant jackets are generally uniform in cross-section, given allowances for the taper required for casting or other manufacturing purposes. The uniform cross-section results in a uniform heat transfer coefficient from the cylinder to the coolant. But, because the heat flux from an engine cylinder is much lower at the bottom of the cylinder than at the top, while each of the cylinder walls is adequately cooled at the top of the bore the bottom of each of the cylinders in an engine is over-cooled. Overcooling is undesirable because the cylinder wall will not have a uniform temperature from top to bottom. A uniform wall temperature has several advantages, such as reduced cylinder bore distortion for better sealing and reduced wear, lower hydrocarbon (HC) emissions, and reduced fuel consumption of the engine. In recognition of the overcooling concern, state-of-the-art engine designs have reduced the depth of the coolant jacket to less than 100 percent of the piston stroke, i.e., the coolant jacket does not extend down in the block as far down as the piston travels. This will raise the temperature in the lower part of the block, but the remaining coolant jacket still has a uniform cross-section, which yields a uniform heat transfer coefficient and a non-uniform wall temperature profile, thus, not totally eliminating the concern. Some prior art designs have had tapered coolant jackets, but they are generally for manufacturing reasons, and they do not match the tapers to closely control the heat transfer to maintain a uniform cylinder wall temperature. Consequently, it is desired to have a coolant jacket design with a heat transfer coefficient matched to the heat flux level in order to maintain a uniform cylinder wall temperature. For this, an engine cylinder block cooling passage design is needed which matches the convective heat transfer coefficient to the heat flux from the combustion gases, thereby yielding a uniform cylinder wall temperature. One type of design, which attempts to overcome this concern, is disclosed in U.S. Patents 5,233,947 to Abe et al., and 5,211,137 to Kawauchi et al. They employ stepped velocity (discrete steps) to adjust heat transfer in series of circumferential passages that encircle each cylinder. These patents recognise the desire for reduced coolant velocity at the bottom of the cylinder and achieve it by having lower velocity coolant flow achieved in the lower grooves by virtue of a higher pressure drop along the inlet and/or outlet coolant manifolds. The grooves near the top of the cylinder are fed from the manifolds the top where they are large and not much pressure drop occurs. The grooves near the bottom of the cylinder, however, are fed from the bottom of the manifolds where the manifolds are narrower and create a pressure drop along the flow path. These patents, then, disclose distributing the flow along the cylinder axis by varying the pressure drop for each of the many flow passages relative to one another, from top to bottom. The pressure drop occurs along, or parallel to the flow direction. The only way to increase its accuracy is to keep increasing the number of passages since the flow change is discrete from one passage to the next, resulting in a design with many flow passages to maintain accuracy. In British Patent 584,179 individual cylinders of an internal combustion engine are provided with an external coolant jacket which is spaced from the cylinder wall and preferably having a stepped formation so that the cooling chamber formed by this jacket or sleeve gradually narrows or becomes shallower towards the bottom of the cylinder. There is no suggestion that the lowermost section of the cooling jacket tapers continuously along its length. Nor does it suggest that the coolant jacket is located within a cylinder block and the coolant jacket communicates, with the block, to an adjacent coolant jacket. In its embodiments, the present invention contemplates an internal combustion engine. The engine comprises a piston and a cylinder block. The cylinder block has an upper end and a lower end and includes a cylindrical bore in the cylinder block extending from the upper to the lower end forming a piston cylinder for slidably receiving the piston therein. The cylinder block further includes a coolant jacket encircling the cylinder, adapted for receiving coolant fluid to flow therein, with the coolant jacket tapering sufficiently in width such that the velocity of fluid flowing within the coolant jacket will vary in a direction normal to the general direction of fluid flow due to a viscous drag effect acting on fluid over a portion of the length of the cooling jacket, wherein the heat transfer coefficient will be reduced with reduced velocity of fluid. According to the invention we provide an internal combustion engine comprising a plurality of pistons; and a cylinder block having an upper end and a lower end and including cylindrical bores in the cylinder block extending from the upper to the lower end forming piston cylinders for slidably receiving the pistons therein; each cylinder being provided with a coolant jacket encircling the cylinder and located within the cylinder block, each coolant jacket being connected to an adjacent coolant jacket encircling an adjacent cylinder by a passageway within the cylinder block and adapted to receive coolant fluid to flow therethrough and wherein the coolant jacket comprises at least two sections, an upper section and a lower section which are in permanent fluid communication with each other around the whole circumference of the cylinder, the lower section tapering continuously down from where it meets the upper section to a closed end, the tapering in width in section being such that the velocity of fluid flowing within section will vary in a direction normal to the general direction of fluid flow due to a viscous drag effect acting on fluid over the length of section, wherein the heat transfer will be reduced with reduced velocity of fluid. The present invention provides in an engine cylinder block a coolant jacket with variable cross-sectional area so that the heat transfer coefficient profile substantially matches the heat flux profile, and therefore results in a uniform wall temperature profile, by varying, in a direction normal to the flow, the velocity of the fluid within the coolant jacket. An advantage of the present invention is that it avoids cylinder blocks being adequately cooled at the top of the bore while being over-cooled at the bottom by matching the heat transfer coefficient to the heat flux from combustion in the cylinder (i.e., matching the heat transfer coefficient to the heat flux to provide adequate cooling over the whole length of the cylinder); this gives a uniform cylinder block temperature profile that reduces bore distortion for better sealing (reduces blowby of combustion gases past the piston rings) and reduced piston and cylinder liner wear, lowers HC emissions, and reduces fuel consumption of the engine. Another advantage of the present invention is that the cylinder wall temperature can be maintained uniformly, with minimal discrete steps without having to add a large number of circumferential passages around each cylinder. The invention will now be described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Fig. 1 is a side sectional view of a cylinder in an engine block and the cooling passage running about the cylinder; Fig. 2 is a section cut taken along line 2-2 in Fig. 1, rotated 90 degrees; Fig. 3 is a graph of a heat flux profile compared with a heat transfer coefficient profile; and Fig. 4 is a side sectional view similar to Fig. 1 showing an alternate embodiment of the present invention. This invention disclosure concerns the design of a coolant passage which matches the convective heat transfer coefficient of the coolant flow to the heat flux rejected from the combustion gases in the cylinder. By matching the heat transfer coefficient and the heat flux, it is possible to achieve a substantially uniform temperature profile on a cylinder wall. A cylinder block 10 of an engine 12 includes cylinder bores 14. The cylinder bores 14 are defined by cylinder walls 16. Surrounding a portion of each cylinder wall 16, within the cylinder block 10, is a cooling passage, or jacket, 18. A liquid coolant fills the cooling passage 18 and generally flows while the engine is operating above a predetermined temperature. The arrows in Fig. 2, labelled as element 20, show the general flow of coolant through the cooling passage, forming a flow stream. Each cylinder bore 14 receives a piston 22, which slides up and down in a reciprocating motion. Each piston has piston rings 24 mounted thereto to provide for sealing between the piston 22 and its respective cylinder wall 16. The cooling passage 18 around each cylinder wall 16 includes a first section 26 near the top end 28 of the block 10, a second section 30 adjacent to the first and a third section 32 adjacent to the second 30. The first section 26 is wider than the second section 30 with a step change in width between the two. The second section 30 is wider than the third 32 with a step change between the two. The third section 32 tapers down in width from top to bottom. The widths of the third section 32 and the second section 30 are sized such that as coolant flows in the cooling passage 18, a viscous drag effect on the walls of these sections will cause the fluid in these sections 30, 32 to travel more slowly than in the first section 26. This difference in velocity of the fluid varies the amount of heat absorbed. The reasons for this difference in heat absorption will now be described. Generally, the heat flux to the coolant of an engine is commonly expressed as q"(y) = h(y) (T wall (y)- T coolant ). The term q"(y) is the heat flux or heat flow per unit area at location y, where y is the direction of the piston stroke within the cylinder; h(y) is the convective heat transfer coefficient at location y; T wall (y) is the temperature of the wall at location y; and T coolant is the temperature of the coolant. The coolant temperature is considered to be a constant in the y direction, although it may change along the z direction (along the flow stream). If h(y) has the same shape as q"(y), then T wall (y) will be constant. Another equation needed to understand the present invention is that the heat transfer coefficient is affected by the fluid velocity. This is expressed by h α v 0.8 ; where v is the average velocity of the fluid. This relation is valid for turbulent flows in a passage, which is generally the case in engine coolant flows. Therefore, the heat transfer coefficient is shaped by shaping the velocity profile of the fluid in the cooling passage 18, but not on a one-to-one basis. The phenomenon which is used here to tailor the velocity profile of the coolant in the cooling passage 18 is that of viscous drag. That is, a boundary layer effect is used to influence and vary the velocities within the cooling passage 18. In a boundary layer, the fluid slows down until, at a solid surface, the velocity is zero. The boundary layer effect occurs because of viscous drag in the fluid. In order to obtain a velocity variation along the y-direction in the cooling passage 18, the coolant jacket width must be such that the average velocity of the fluid is significantly effected by the boundary layer at the appropriate locations in the passage 18. This means that coolant jackets which are significantly wider than the boundary layer will not demonstrate the effect of velocity profile shaping due to a viscous drag effect. Thus, simply tapering the passage will not reduce the velocity enough to have any substantial effect. The cross-section of the coolant passage must by reduced enough so that viscous drag can substantially slow down the flow at the correct locations in the cooling passage 18. The passage should be thin enough at the thinnest section for the boundary layer of the liquid flow to affect the average velocity at those locations. Typically, boundary layers in turbulent, fully-developed flow are around 1 mm thick, so when the passage thickness gets above approximately 4 mm, the mean velocity is not significantly affected anymore. An example of the requisite dimensions will now be discussed. Fig. 3 illustrates a graph of a heat flux profile 50 compared with a heat transfer coefficient profile 52 from a flow simulation which approximates the velocities. The axial distance (% of stroke) is the y-direction of the above noted equations starting from the top of the block 28 and extending to the downward limit of the stroke of the piston 22. Fig. 3 also shows the heat transfer coefficient 53 from a conventional coolant jacket design having a constant width and extending 100 percent of the piston stroke. The dimensions for this example will be with reference to Figs. 1 and 2. The first section 26 has a width of ten millimetres (mm) and extends from about ten percent to twenty three percent of the piston stroke. The second section 30 has a width of four mm and extends from about twenty three percent to thirty three percent of the piston stroke. The third section 32 tapers from two mm, where it intersects the second section 30, to one mm and extends from about thirty three percent to seventy percent of the piston stroke. As can be noted, the dimensions at the third section 32 are thin enough for a boundary layer to significantly affect the average velocity at those locations, and the dimensions of the second section 30 are enough for a boundary layer to have a minor effect on the velocity. As can be seen from Fig. 3, these dimensions allow for the heat transfer coefficient 52 to closely track the heat flux 50, thereby maintaining a more uniform temperature in cylinder wall 16. More steps can be used to form cooling passage 18, if so desired, in order to more closely match the heat flux profile with the heat transfer coefficient profile. In the exemplary cylinder block illustrated in Figs. 1 and 2, the cooling passage 18 does not extend all of the way to the top of the cylinder block 10. This is because the cylinder block 10 is a closed deck design, which requires a continuous wall across the top end 28 of the block 10. The present invention, however, is also applicable to cylinder block designs known as open deck. For this type of cylinder block design, then, the cooling passage can extend all of the way to the top of the block, which would allow for a better matching of the heat flux profile to the heat transfer coefficient profile at zero to ten percent of the piston stroke. Fig. 4 shows an alternate embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, similar elements are similarly designated with the first embodiment, while changed elements are designated with an added prime. The cooling jacket 18' in the cylinder block 10' has a lower section 26' that merges with the upper section as a taper rather than a discrete step. The taper allows for more precise control of the amount of cooling at each vertical location in the cylinder wall 16. It is preferable to taper the width of the cooling passage 18' rather than step as far as maintaining as much accuracy as possible for matching the heat flux profile to the heat transfer coefficient profile, although this configuration may be more expensive to fabricate than a cooling passage with discrete steps. The taper in the width of the cooling passage 18' is non-linear to more completely match the heat transfer coefficient to the heat flux curve.

Claims: An internal combustion engine comprising a plurality of pistons (22); and a cylinder block (10) having an upper end and a lower end and including cylindrical bores (14) in the cylinder block (10) extending from the upper to the lower end forming piston cylinders for slidably receiving the pistons (22) therein; each cylinder being provided with a coolant jacket (18) encircling the cylinder and located within the cylinder block (10), each coolant jacket (18) being connected to an adjacent coolant jacket (18) encircling an adjacent cylinder by a passageway (20) within the cylinder block (10) and adapted to receive coolant fluid to flow therethrough and wherein the coolant jacket (18) comprises at least two sections, an upper section (30) and a lower section (32) which are in permanent fluid communication with each other around the whole circumference of the cylinder, the lower section (32) tapering continuously down from where it meets upper section (30) to a closed end, the tapering in width in section (32) being such that the velocity of fluid flowing within section (32) will vary in a direction normal to the general direction of fluid flow due to a viscous drag effect acting on fluid over the length of section (32), wherein the heat transfer will be reduced with reduced velocity of fluid. An internal combustion engine as claimed in claim 1, wherein the coolant jacket includes three sections, an upper first section (26), an intermediate section (30) adjacent to the first section (26), and a lower third section (32) adjacent to the second section (30), with the second section (30) having a width smaller than the first section (26), and the third section (32) tapering down to a closed end from where it meets the second section (30). An internal combustion engine as claimed in claim 2, wherein the first section has a width of about ten millimetres, the second section has a width of about four millimetres and the third section tapers from about 2 millimetres width adjacent to the second section to 1 millimetre at its other end. An internal combustion engine as claimed in claim 1, wherein the width of section (32) of the coolant jacket tapers non-linearly from one end to the other. An internal combustion engine as claimed in claim 1, wherein the piston slides within the cylinder bore a predetermined distance and the coolant jacket extends over only seventy percent of the distance. An internal combustion engine as claimed in claim 1, wherein the width of the coolant jacket near the upper end of the cylinder block is ten millimetres and the width of the coolant jacket near the lower end of the cylinder block is one millimetre. An internal combustion engine as claimed in claim 1, wherein the piston slides within the cylinder bore a predetermined distance and the coolant jacket extends over between 60 and 80 percent of the distance.

Inventors: BOGGS DAVID, BOGGS, DAVID
Applicants: FORD FRANCE, FORD MOTOR CO, FORD WERKE AG, FORD FRANCE S.A., FORD MOTOR COMPANY LIMITED, FORD-WERKE AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT
Application year: 1996
Main classification: F02F1
IPC codes: F02F1, F01P3