Looking for heat engine simulation software

[kkhu]

Hi!

I am wondering if anyone here knows of a generic heat engine simulator. I.e. something that can simulate the behavior of reciprocating engines, Stirling engines, and so forth.

The outputs I'm interested in include things like power and efficiency. The input variables that I would play around with include engine dimensions and material properties.

The approaches I've found tend to be CFD type simulations, but I'm not particularly concerned with fuel flow or combustion. In fact, for my purpose I could abstract the heat source as a simple heat flow. The heat transfer parts are what concerns me, mostly.

I've tried using multiphysics FEA packages such as ANSYS and Abaqus, however, I have not been able to produce reasonable results.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Regards,
Kerwin

 

[xxChrisxx]

Lotus Engine Software is a simulation for 4 stroke piston engines. I don't know of any generic heat engine, as they ar eso different and require quite specialist simulations.

It also depends on the level and type of information you want. IT's be possible to build a rudimentary analytical or numerical simulation in excel or matlab. If you want detailed info on how the fluid flows or interacts then you need some pretty hefty software. (CFD + FEA or FSI)