The Effects of Intake Plenum

Volume on the Performance of a

Leonard J. Hamilton
Jim S. Cowart
Jasen E. Lee
Ryan E. Amorosso
U.S. Naval Academy,
Annapolis, MD 21402
Small Naturally Aspirated
Restricted Engine
Intake tuning is a widely recognized method for optimizing the performance of a natu-
rally aspirated engine for motorsports applications. Wave resonance and Helmholtz theo-
ries are useful for predicting the impact of intake runner length on engine performance.
However, there is very little information in the literature regarding the effects of intake
plenum volume. The goal of this study was to determine the effects of intake plenum
volume on steady state and transient engine performance for a restricted naturally aspi-
rated engine for Formula Society of Automotive Engineers (FSAE) vehicle use. Testing
was conducted on a four cylinder 600 cc motorcycle engine fitted with a 20 mm restrictor
in compliance with FSAE competition rules. Plenum sizes were varied from 2 to 10 times
engine displacement (1.26.0 l) and engine speeds were varied from 3000 rpm to 12,500
rpm. Performance metrics including volumetric efficiency, torque, and power were re-
corded at steady state conditions. Experimental results showed that engine performance
increased modestly as plenum volume was increased from 2 to 8 times engine displace-
ment (4.8 l). Increasing plenum volume beyond 4.8 l resulted in significant improvement
in performance parameters. Overall, peak power was shown to increase from 54 kW to
63 kW over the range of plenums tested. Additionally, transient engine performance was
evaluated using extremely fast (60 ms) throttle opening times for the full range of plenum
sizes tested. In-cylinder pressure was used to calculate cycle-resolved gross indicated
mean effective pressure (IMEPg) development during these transients. Interestingly, the
cases with the largest plenum sizes only took 1 to 2 extra cycles (3060 ms) to achieve
maximum IMEPg levels when compared with the smaller volumes. In fact, the differences
were so minor that it would be doubtful that a driver would notice the lag. Additional
metrics included time for the plenums to fill and an analysis of manifold absolute pres-
sure and peak in-cylinder pressure development during and after the throttle transient.
Plenums below 4.8 l completely filled even before the transient was completed.
DOI: 10.1115/1.4001071

1 Introduction
Intake system tuning is a well known and cost effective method
of increasing the performance of internal combustion engines
without the use of mechanical turbochargers or superchargers for
motorsports applications. In general, intake systems consist of an
airbox or plenum chamber fed by a throttle body and runners
that lead from the plenum to each cylinder. Engine designers
strive to take advantage of pressure wave dynamics in the intake
system to increase the mass of air transferred to the combustion
chamber over desired rpm ranges.
While the actual wave dynamics are complex for a multi-
cylinder engine, the intake system can be modeled as a simple
Helmholtz resonator 1. When the intake valve opens and the
piston descends, a rarefaction or expansion wave travels upstream
in the runner toward the plenum. Upon reaching the runner open-
ing in the plenum, this wave is partially transmitted still as an
expansion wave into the plenum. At the same time, part of the
original expansion wave is reflected as a compression wave that
Contributed by the IC Engine Division of ASME for publication in the JOURNAL OF
ENGINEERING FOR GAS TURBINES AND POWER. Manuscript received September 23, 2009;
final manuscript received September 25, 2009; published online September 24, 2010.
Editor: Dilip R. Ballal.
The United States Government retains, and by accepting the article for publica-
tion, the publisher acknowledges that the United States Government retains, a non-
exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the pub-
lished form of this work, or allow others to do so, for United States Government
purposes.
heads back to the cylinder. If the compression wave arrives at the
intake valve before it closes, the increased pressure will effec-
tively force more air into the cylinder 2. This tuning effect or
resonant supercharging leads to increased volumetric efficiency
and torque. Meanwhile, the expansion waves will travel to the
inactive branches with closed valves and be reflected as expan-
sion waves back to the active runner. These expansion waves re-
duce intake runner pressure and have the effect of reducing volu-
metric efficiency 1. Typically, intake tuners focus on runner
geometry length and/or cross section area and plenum size and
shape. An excellent overview of resonant supercharging is pro-
vided by Benajes et al. 3.
This method is particularly useful for vehicles competing in the
Formula Society of Automotive Engineers FSAE design series,
where the extra weight and complexity of mechanical boost sys-
tems could be detrimental to overall performance. The FSAE se-
ries provides college students from around the world an opportu-
nity to conceive, design, fabricate, and compete a small scale
formula style vehicle based on a comprehensive set of design
constraints. Several of the constraints pertain to engine and intake
design. For example, engine size is limited to 610 cc and all intake
air must pass through a restrictor of circular cross section 20 mm
for gasoline or 19 mm for E85 4.
Some excellent studies have been published to document the
effects of intake tuning on a restricted engine suitable for use in
the FSAE design series. Jawad et al. 5 evaluated four different
intake designs with a Honda CBR600 F4i engine coupled to a

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 Table 1 2002 Honda CBR 600 F4i specifications
Engine configuration Inline four, 4 stroke, DOHC
Displacement 600 cc
Fuel system EFI
Cooling system Water
Lubrication system Wet sump
Compression ratio 12:1
Valves per cylinder 4
Bore 67.0 mm
Stroke 42.5 mm
Valve timing
IVO 30 deg BTC
IVC 60 deg ABC
EVO 50 deg BBC
EVC 10 deg ATC
water brake dynamometer. Their performance criteria were based
on total area under the power curve for each configuration. They
focused primarily on novel runner geometry approaches and did
not document changes in plenum volume.
McKee et al. 6 provided a seminal contribution to optimiza-
tion of this class of engines by experimentally evaluating the ef-
fects of diffuser length after the restrictor, runner length, cam-
shaft modifications, and exhaust tuning. However, they selected a
plenum volume of 3.5 l and did not vary it during testing. This
decision was based on model predictions, which did not show
much benefit by increasing plenum volume beyond this amount.
The effect of plenum volume on engine performance was stud-
ied and reported by Ceviz 7 as a basis for variable intake plenum
technology. He installed plenum additions 90 and 180 cc to the
original intake manifold of a 1.6 l four cylinder gasoline engine
over a modest rpm range of 12503000 rpm. While he found that
increasing plenum volume increased power at the mid-rpm range,
plenum size had to be reduced for best performance at higher
speeds. It should be noted that this engine was equipped with a
carburetor and the author cited difficulty with proper air-fuel ratio
control when changing plenum size.
The objective of the current study is to determine the effects of
plenum size on volumetric efficiency, torque, and power for a
restricted intake 600 cc motorcycle engine for use in Formula
SAE applications under steady state and transient operating con-
ditions.
2 Experimental Setup
2.1 Experimental Apparatus. All testing was conducted us-
ing a 2002 Honda CBR600 F4i engine equipped with a
MoTeC M4 engine control unit ECU. The engine characteris-
tics are listed in Table 1. Engine performance parameters were
measured using a Land and Sea water brake dynamometer
coupled to the output shaft. The dynamometer was equipped with
a load servo to maintain a specified rpm regardless of throttle
position. The intake apparatus included a throttle body, an intake
pipe with a circular 20 mm diameter restrictor, a custom variable
volume intake plenum and four 0.05 m aluminum intake runners,
as shown in Fig. 1.
This runner length was chosen to produce peak torque at 10,000
rpm based on the following equation from Lumley 1:
a2 v2
L= 1 application.
4aN
where L is the intake length m, is the intake valve open dura-
tion rad divided by , a is the speed of sound m/s, v is the
velocity of air m/s in the intake Lumley uses v 0, and N is
the engine speed rad/s.
From Eq. 1, predicted intake length to produce a torque peak
at 10,000 rpm was 0.13 m. Since the intake path in the cylinder
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Fig. 1 Intake system
head was 0.10 m, this would have required the intake runners to
be only 0.03 m. To facilitate fuel injector placement, the actual
runners were cut to 0.05 m as mentioned above.
A 02 bar absolute Kistler piezoelectric pressure transducer
was mounted in the plenum adjacent to the runner leading to
cylinder No. 1 with a data rate of 40 kHz. An identical 02 bar
absolute pressure transducer was placed midway in runner No. 1.
This location was 0.12 m from the intake valve as it included the
length of the cylinder head intake port beyond the runner base.
Next, a 6052C Kistler pressure transducer was mounted in the
cylinder head to read combustion chamber pressure in cylinder
No. 1. In-cylinder pressure was used to calculate gross indicated
mean effective pressure IMEPg on a cycle resolved basis. An
increase in IMEPg would correspond closely to the increase in
torque felt by the driver during a throttle stomp. Thus, IMEPg
was considered a principle metric in evaluating transient perfor-
mance. Finally, an ECM 1200 oxygen sensor was mounted in
the exhaust header approximately 0.12 m from exhaust valve to
provide positive feedback to the ECU to maintain proper AFR
control. The AFR target in the ECU was set to stoichiometric for
all test points. Injector sequencing was selected to minimize pres-
sure fluctuations in the fuel rail.
The intake plenum was designed as a simple aluminum box
with a movable ceiling to provide 9 discrete volumes for testing.
The possible volumes were based on engine displacement and
ranged from 2 1.2 l to 10 6.0 l. In all cases, the entrance to the
plenum via the restrictor was not changed; only the ceiling was
raised or lowered to change plenum volume. The plenum can be
seen in Fig. 1.
A 45-mm throttle body fitted to the end of the restrictor was
used for transient testing. A hand lever was used to actuate the
throttle via a control cable. An electronically controlled stepper
motor was considered for throttle tip-in but was not used as it
was unable to achieve the very fast opening time desired 60 ms.
This throttle transient represented the fastest time physically
achievable by the test team and was felt to meet or exceed the
severity of transients that could be achieved in a real world
Volumetric efficiency, a measure of engine air breathing capac-
ity, was one of the desired parameters to be evaluated in this study
as it directly relates to torque produced by an engine 8. It is
determined by dividing the actual mass of air consumed by the
ideal air mass that could be drawn in based on displacement vol-
ume, as shown in Eqs. 2 and 3.
Volumetric efficiency is
Transactions of the ASME
 0.035
60
cal data
0.030
linear fit 55

-m)
0.025 50

corrected torque (N
fuel flow (cc/shot)

0.020
45

40
0.015
35
y = 0.0036 x 0.0039
0.010 30
R2 = 1
25
0.005
20

ple
0.000 6

nu
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 5

m
4

vol
pulse width (ms)

um
3
12000

e(
Fig. 2 Injector calibration at fuel pressure= 4.0 bars 2 10000
8000

L)
1 6000
4000
RPM

m
V = air,actual 2 Fig. 4 Torque-rpm and plenum volume sweep
m air,ideal
where

air,ideal =
m
RTair
PairVdisp rpm
Since the engine was not equipped with a mass airflow sensor,
fuel flow rate and AFR were used to determine actual air flow
through the engine using equation
air,actual = AFR m
m fuel
A fuel injector calibration test was performed to determine actual
fuel flow for a given pulse width. For this calibration, the fuel rail
was pressurized to 4.0 bar and a single injector was activated for
1000 shots into a graduated cylinder to get an accurate volumet-
ric fuel flow rate for various pulse width values. The result of this
calibration is shown in Fig. 2. Notice that the curve intercepts the
x-axis at 1.1 ms, which represents the opening time for these
injectors. Using this calibration relationship yields the following
equation for fuel mass flow rate:
2
3
minimum timing for best brake torque for the range of 1300
12,500 rpm. Engine knock was not encountered on any of the test
runs.
2.2 Experimental Procedures. All testing was performed in
a climate controlled test cell with the engine fully warmed up.
Prior to each test period, test cell temperature and barometric
4 pressure were recorded. Standard SAE correction factors were
used for all performance results. Plenum volumes were varied
from 1.2 l to 6.0 l in 0.6 l increments for steady state testing and
1.2 l increments for transient testing. Special care was taken to
ensure that all seams and access holes were sealed prior to testing.
For steady state testing, the engine was stabilized at wide open
throttle from 3000 rpm to 12,500 rpm at 500 rpm intervals. For
transient tests, the engine was stabilized at 4000 rpm before the
throttle was fully opened in 60 ms. Dynamometer controls were
set to simulate acceleration loading on flat terrain. Acceleration

fueling was adjusted to ensure proper AFR control throughout the
rpm transient. Intake and combustion chamber pressures, absorber
fuel = fuel0.0036PW 0.0039
m 5
2 torque, fuel pulse width, and AFR were recorded for each test run.
Commercial premium gasoline with a R + M / 2 octane rating av-
where PW is the fuel pulse width in milliseconds.
erage of research and motoring octane number of 94 was used for
For all testing, spark timing was set according to the curve
all test points.
shown in Fig. 3. This curve represents experimentally derived

3 Results and Discussion

80
3.1 Full rpm Sweep. Figures 4 and 5 show graphical repre-
70 sentations of the effects of plenum size on torque at various en-
gine speeds. At low rpm, the smaller plenum appears to produce
higher torque than the large plenum although the effect is modest.
spark timing (deg BTC)

60
However, above 7000 rpm, it is clear that torque tends to increase
50 significantly as plenum size increases. This effect is more pro-
nounced at higher rpm. In fact, at the maximum rpm tested, torque
40 dropped from 48 N m to 36 N m when comparing the largest and
smallest plenums; a 25% loss in torque.
30 It is also evident that there are two distinct torque peaks; one at
approximately 6500 rpm and the second near 10,000 rpm. It is
20 also interesting to note that the peak torque speed location has a
very weak dependence on plenum size. For the 6.0 l plenum,
10 torque peaks at 54.5 N m at 10,000 rpm, while the 1.2 l plenum
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 results in a peak of 48.5 N m at 9500 rpm. As discussed earlier,
RPM this is because runner length is the primary factor in determining
the frequency driven by engine rpm for resonant supercharging
Fig. 3 Spark timing curve 3. Later in this paper, the effects of plenum size on engine per-

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 60 70

6.0L plenum 6.0L plenum

55 60

50
50

45 1.2L plenum
torque (Nm)

power (kW)
40
40 1.2L plenum
30
35

20
30

10
25

20 0
2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000

RPM RPM

Fig. 5 Comparison of torque between smallest and largest Fig. 7 Comparison of power output between smallest and
plenums tested largest plenums tested

formance operating at 9500 rpm will be more closely examined.
Figure 6 shows a similar rpm and plenum sweep with power as
the variable of interest. As before, plenum size has little effect
until approximately 7000 rpm, as shown in Fig. 7. At the higher
engine speeds, the increase in power with plenum size is dramatic.
Peak power output increases from 54 kW for the 1.2 l plenum to
63 kW for the 6.0 l plenuman increase of 17%. Note that ple-
num size appears to have a greater effect on the engine speed for
peak power than it did on peak torque. In fact, for the smaller
plenums, power peaked at approximately 11,000 rpm while the
larger plenums drove the rpm for peak power out to 12,500 rpm.
This is largely due to the precipitous reduction in torque for the
small plenums at high rpm seen in Fig. 4.
Another interesting metric is comparison of integrated area un-
der the torque and power curves over the useful rpm range. This
metric is useful in evaluating the overall advantage offered by a
particular plenum size. Recall that in Fig. 5 the large plenum
clearly held the advantage at high rpm but the smaller plenum
showed a modest advantage in the low rpm range. Figure 8 shows
integrated area normalized to the 1.2 l plenum for both torque
and power for engine speed ranging from 3000 rpm to 12,500
rpm. From this chart, it is clear that gains in torque and power are
relatively modest for plenum volume up to 3.6 l or 6 times engine
70
displacement. However, increasing plenum volume up to 8 or 10
times displacement produces a relatively large increase in perfor-
mance based on integrated area. When compared with the 1.2 l
plenum, the 6.0 l plenum produces a 5% and 8% increase in area
under the torque and power curves, respectively.
3.2 Plenum Comparison at 9500 rpm. Next, the effect of
plenum size on engine performance at 9500 rpm was closely
evaluated. This engine speed was chosen because it corresponded
to nominally the highest torque region across the plenum sizes
tested. Figure 9 shows the effect of plenum size on volumetric
efficiency and power at 9500 rpm. Note that it is not necessary to
also plot torque as that would show an identical trend as power
since rpm is fixed. It is interesting to see that volumetric efficiency
shows only modest gains as plenum size is increased until 4.8 l 8
engine displacements is exceeded. Beyond that size, volumetric
efficiency jumps from 0.83 to 0.95, a relative increase of 14.5%.
A similar trend is noted for power. Once a plenum size of 8
engine displacements 4.8 l is used, power increases by nearly
5%. Overall, power increased from 47 kW to 53 kW across the
full range of plenum volumes tested at this engine speed. This
corresponds to a 12.7% increase in power with no other modifi-
cations to the engine.
The fast response plenum pressure traces shown in Fig. 10 are
helpful in understanding this significant effect. In this figure, nor-
malized pressure is plotted for several plenums over the range of
crank angle degrees CADs corresponding to the open intake

60
1.10
)
corrected power (kW

50 power
1.08
40

30 1.06
normalized area

20
1.04 torque
10
1.02
0
ple

6
nu

5 1.00
m

4
vol
um

3
0.98
12000
e(

2 10000 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8000
L)

1 6000 plenum volume (L)

4000
RPM
Fig. 8 Comparison of normalized integrated area under torque
Fig. 6 Power-rpm and plenum volume sweep and power curves for various plenum sizes

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 1.0 58 0.978 0.96
volumetric efficiency 0.976 0.94
56
0.8 0.974 avg P/Patm 0.92
volumetric efficiency
0.972
volumetric efficiency

0.90

volumetric efficiency
corrected power (kW)

average P/Patm
54
0.6 0.970
0.88
corrected power 0.968
52
0.86
0.966
0.4
0.84
50 0.964
0.82
0.962
0.2
48 0.80
0.960

0.958 0.78
0.0 46 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
plenum volume (L)
plenum volume (L)
Fig. 11 The effect of normalized intake pressure on volumetric
Fig. 9 Plenum volume sweep at 9500 rpm efficiency at 9500 rpm

valve. In this case, CAD= 0 deg corresponds to top center. The num volume increases. Also plotted in this figure is volumetric
dotted line, representing the smallest plenum, shows two deep efficiency. It is evident that the trend in normalized pressure av-
pressure troughs; one just after intake valve opening and another eraged over the intake valve open period corresponds directly
one as the piston approached bottom center. The next two bigger with an increase in volumetric efficiency. Thus, intake runner
volumes, 3.6 l and 4.8 l, show a similar but less significant pressure can be used as a measure of intake system effectiveness.
trough just after IVO. These two cases show much higher pres-
sures even as the piston is descending implying greater resonant 3.3 Transient Response. Figure 12 shows a representative
charging. Finally, the largest plenum shows very little pressure throttle transient conducted during this evaluation. Note that
drop just after IVO and a significant peak just before intake valve throttle tip-in is very fast 60 ms and appears to be essentially
closing also caused by resonant charging. linear based on the throttle position sensor. Relative air-fuel ratio
Qualitatively, it appears that the largest plenum provides the remains stable during and after the throttle transient even for sev-
greatest average pressure throughout the intake valve open period. eral cycles beyond those shown in the figure. This was an impor-
This advantageous pressure profile is likely the result of beneficial tant consideration in order to rule out fueling effects as a possible
wave dynamics that occur in the larger plenum chamber known as contributor to IMEPg development trends. As manifold absolute
resonance charging 9. Due to the confined space in the smaller pressure MAP rises, peak in-cylinder pressure rapidly builds. In
plenums, strong reflection of expansion waves from neighboring order to be considered suitable for data analysis and comparison,
cylinders with closed intake valves may cause interference each throttle transient had to begin during the intake stroke of
waves that reduce the strength of compression waves in the pri- cycle 0 and have a 60 ms opening duration.
mary runner thereby negating the beneficial effects of resonant Figure 13 shows cycle-resolved IMEPg development for vari-
charging to some extent. This may account for the reduced volu- ous plenum sizes during and after the 60 ms throttle transient. In
metric efficiency measured for the 2.4 l plenum, as seen in Figs. 9 each case, cycle 0 indicated the start of the throttle transient. The
and 11. It is likely that the reflections of expansion waves in the smallest plenum showed nearly immediate IMEPg increase while
larger plenums are not as strong as those in the smaller plenums the largest plenum showed approximately one cycle delay ini-
and therefore do not degrade resonance charging. tially. Later in the transient, the 6.0 l plenum took 12 more cycles
To quantify these pressure trends, normalized pressure was av- or 3060 ms longer to achieve the same IMEPg as the 1.2 l ple-
eraged across the entire intake valve open period and compared num. The three middle plenum volumes, 2.4 l, 3.6 l, and 4.8 l
for the various plenum sizes. Figure 11 provides a summary of tended to be grouped together between these extreme cases. By
these averages and shows that they increase significantly as ple- the sixth cycle, the differences were practically indistinguishable.

1.04
5
1.2L cycle 4
1.02 3.6L throttle open fraction
4.8L in-cyl pressure (bar/10) cycle 3
6.0L 4 manifold pressure (bar)
1.00 lambda

cycle 2
discrete values

0.98
P/Patm

3
cycle 1
0.96
2
0.94 cycle 0

0.92 1

0.90
-30 0 30 60 90 120 150 180 210 240 0
IVO TC BC IVC 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
crank angle degrees
time (msec)
Fig. 10 Normalized plenum pressure for various plenum vol-
umes during intake valve open event for cylinder No. 1 Fig. 12 Transient response for 1.2 l plenum

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 18 1.1

16

14 1.0

manifold pressure (bar)

12 1.2L
2.4L
IMEPg (bar)

0.9
10 3.6L
4.8L
1.2L 6.0L
8 2.4L
3.6L 0.8
6 4.8L
6.0L
4
0.7 throttle fully open
2

0 0.6
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

cycle # cycle #

Fig. 13 Effect of plenum volume on the gross indicated mean Fig. 15 Cycle-resolved MAP development
effective pressure development

them. As a result, pressure pulses occurring during the transient

It is believed that even experienced drivers would be unable to
detect any acceleration lag differences between the various ple-
num volumes tested.
Figure 14 shows the effect of plenum volume on peak in-
cylinder pressure during and after the throttle transient. Peak pres-
sure trends naturally followed the same behavior as IMEPg devel-
opment. Plenum volumes 1.2 l and 6.0 l were separated by 1 to 2
cycles and the other three volumes were grouped together in the
middle.
Figure 15 shows the increase in manifold absolute pressure trig-
gered by the throttle transient for each of the plenum volumes.
The pressure values shown are averages taken from several runs at
each plenum volume. The throttle transient begins at the start of
cycle 0 and is completed by the start of cycle 2, as shown by the
vertical line on the graph. For the two smallest plenums, it is clear
that MAP exceeds 1.0 bar even before the throttle is fully open. In
fact, MAP appears to overshoot ambient conditions suggesting a
ram tuning effect that would ultimately benefit engine transient
response. By the end of cycle 2, the other plenums had reached
maximum pressure.
Figure 16 shows a detailed view of intake manifold pressure
development with respect to percent of total throttle opening. Un-
like the data shown in Fig. 15, these data points were taken from
a single representative run for each plenum volume. This was
done to avoid smoothing out the pressure profiles by averaging
are evident. As shown before, for the smallest two plenums, at-
mospheric pressure is achieved even before the throttle is fully
opened. The remaining plenums appear to be achieving or ap-
proaching atmospheric pressure by the time the throttle is opened
fully. This indicates that ample intake air is available for combus-
tion by the time the throttle transient has been completed for the
majority of the plenum sizes tested. Examining the time it takes to
fill each plenum defined by reaching atmospheric pressure dur-
ing the throttle transient further supports this fact, as shown in
Fig. 17. Note that all but the two largest plenums are actually full
before the throttle is fully open.
4 Conclusions
In summary, there are two main conclusions that can be drawn
regarding the effect of plenum volume on the performance of a
small naturally aspirated engine.
First, an increase in plenum volume resulted in a significant
increase in steady state engine torque and volumetric efficiency
for the majority of the engines operating speed range. In particu-
lar:
Torque was shown to improve at all engine speeds above
6500 rpm.
Maximum torque increase was 31% at 12,500 rpm when
comparing the 6.0 l plenum to the 1.2 l plenum.
Plenum size did not significantly affect torque peak location.

60 1.1

1.2L
2.4L 1.2L
50 3.6L 1.0 2.4L
4.8L 3.6L
peak pressure (bar)

6.0L 4.8L
6.0L
40 0.9
MAP (bar)

30 0.8

20 0.7

10 0.6
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0

cycle # throttle (% open)

Fig. 14 Effect of plenum volume on the peak in-cylinder pres- Fig. 16 Manifold pressure development during throttle
sure development transients

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 80
ABC after bottom center
AFR air fuel ratio
ATC after top center
70
BBC before bottom center
BC bottom center
BTC before top center
fill time (msec)

throttle transient complete

60
CAD crank angle degrees
DOHC dual overhead cam
50
ECU engine control unit
EFI electronic fuel injection
EVC exhaust valve closing
40
EVO exhaust valve opening
FSAE Formula Society of Automotive Engineers
IMEPg gross indicated mean effective pressure bar
30 MAP manifold absolute pressure bar
0 2 4 6 L intake runner length m
plenum volume (L) m mass flow rate kg/s
N engine speed rad/s
Fig. 17 Time to fill plenum during the 60 ms throttle transient Patm atmospheric pressure
for various plenum volumes PW fuel injector pulse width ms
TC top center
v air velocity in intake runner m/s
Increased torque and volumetric efficiency correlated di- Vdisp displacement volume
rectly to higher average intake pressure observed during the WOT wide open throttle
entire intake valve open event for the larger plenums. This intake valve open duration rad /
enhancement was likely due to the resonant charging effect. relative air-fuel ratio AFRactual / AFRstoic
For the smaller plenums, this effect was diminished by the
V volumetric efficiency
effect of neighboring cylinders.
density kg/ m3
Second, increasing plenum size resulted in negligible delays in
transient engine response. Specifically:
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Journal of Engineering for Gas Turbines and Power JANUARY 2011, Vol. 133 / 012801-7

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