engine simulation software

[rac]

anyone have experience/opinion on good engine simulation software?

particularly interested in being able to load custom head flow numbers, cam profiles etc and be applicable to turbocharged application.

i don't mind paying some $, but not that keen on paying $ and finding out its useless for everything other than a 350 chev.

r.

[Sticky]

Any particular software you are referencing @rac?

[rac]

from what i have read dynomation-5 and engine analyzer pro seem to be the most useful, however there isn't a lot of talk on forums on the topic. i've read what i could and in summary the latter appears to be more flexible with more user defined inputs, and b.c of this also needs more detailed information about the engine as less assumptions are made.

the big question is do we know enough about the n54 to model it accurately. if we do then i imagine there would be a lot of value in moving the platform forward on the hardware alteration side of it, since the community is relatively small, trial and error will be a long slow process. i wrote performance trends an email asking how i would model vanos, i can see that would be a major PITA having to splice say 10+ simulated runs together to get a representative torque curve. there is a free trial period on it that might be worth playing with.

[Sticky]

I have no idea what the hell you're talking about but I'd like to play with this program.

[EvanL]

When I was in school I remember modeling a motor using Matlab Simulink, but that's crazy expensive for a piece of software...prolly $10-15k/seat.

[rawad1017]

guys

www.automationgame.com

spend the $30 now you have a BADASS demo with more to come out and free updates to the full game. either spend $30 now and have the full game later or wait til the full game comes out and spend more on it

[rac]

Not the kind of simulation I was thinking of.

[Sticky]

Not the kind of simulation I was thinking of.

Well what are you thinking of?

[rac]

the two examples I listed in the second post. I assume automationgame, is a game. I.e no serious engine modifications are going to made on your own car based on the outcome of the game.

[rawad1017]

uhh no lol you build a car from ground up and there is a whole part for engines specifically you choose the material, bore and stroke, pistons, compression, build forced induction or NA, etc the works

[rac]

I will look into your suggestion further when I'm back from vacation next month, then explain more thoroughly what I was looking for. Typing in my phone is a pita.

[skyegirl]

For serious engine modeling, GT Suite or WAVE from Ricardo would be ideal, although pricey.

https://www.gtisoft.com/
http://www.ricardo.com/en-GB/What-we...Products/WAVE/

There is an open source alternative that I was recommended based on comparisons to GT Suite. It is called OpenWAM and can be downloaded from sourceforge.net:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/openwam/

The homepage, developer and Forum pages can be found here:
http://openwam.webs.upv.es/foro/inde...98e37e19c66eb8
http://openwam.webs.upv.es/manual/in...itle=Main_Page
http://www.cmt.upv.es/OpenWam.aspx

There is quite a steep learning curve (I'm not all the way along it myself yet) and support is mainly from Forum posts.

Hope this helps.

[Sheeldzy]

I've used GT quite a bit and seems to be almost standard in the industry now. The built in tutorials and help files are great for getting started but it really depends on what you want to study as to how and what to model. Also these models tend to require a lot of validation against real world data to be of much credible use.

You can get a long way with hand calculations or setting up spreadsheets etc. Heywood's "Internal Combustion Engine Fundamentals" is a solid book. Eastop and McConkey's "Applied Thermodynamics and Engineering" is better for an entry point though.

Dymola is another good option that has been pretty well received. Can't post a link as I'm new here but Google will find it for you.

[rac]

Thank you @skyegirl and @Sheeldzy

Agree regarding spreadsheets, however some things i am interested in are going beyond my patience levels to understand enough in order to do this. I found the ea pro free trial useful to quickly learn what areas are worth spending more time on before getting knee deep into something only worth 5hp.

@digger I noticed you posted in the manifold design thread and referenced ea and dynomation, any thoughts between the two?

[digger]

dynomation and EAPRo are for the most part toys but are user friendly and a good intro into it. EAPRo gives a 10 day free trial

ive not used the following

http://vannik.co.za/EngMod4T.htm

but it is highly regarded by lots of cluey engineers and engine builders/designers on speedtalk

you can probably get a free trial, the guy who wrote it is "vannik" on speedtalk forums and is a very cluey guy and very very helpful

it apparently requires a bit more of a learning curve than dynoation and EApro but nothing like the full blown suites like ricardo and GT

it does a much better job of intake and exhaust wave tuning than the first two i mentioned and looks like it would be good for turbos