Applied Energy 102 (2013) 327335

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Modeling of reciprocating internal combustion engines for power generation

and heat recovery
Kyung Tae Yun a, Heejin Cho b,, Rogelio Luck a, Pedro J. Mago a
a
b

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mississippi State University, 210 Carpenter Engineering Building, P.O. Box ME, Mississippi State, MS 39762-5925, USA
Pacic Northwest National Laboratory, 902 Battelle Blvd., P.O. Box 999, MSIN K5-16, Richland, WA 99352, USA

h i g h l i g h t s
" A power generation and heat recovery model for internal combustion engines is developed.
" The model provides performance/efciency maps for electrical power output and thermal output.
" The model serves as an alternative to constant engine efciencies or empirical efciency curves.
" The simulation results using the proposed model are validated against manufacturers data.
" The proposed model is coded in FORTRAN and a user-friendly tool was developed.

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 21 December 2011
Received in revised form 14 May 2012
Accepted 18 July 2012
Available online 30 August 2012
Keywords:
Combined heat and power
Internal combustion engine
Power generation
Heat recovery

a b s t r a c t
This paper presents a power generation and heat recovery model for reciprocating internal combustion
engines (ICEs). The purpose of the proposed model is to provide realistic estimates of performance/efciency maps for both electrical power output and useful thermal output for various capacities of engines
for use in a preliminary CHP design/simulation process. The proposed model will serve as an alternative
to constant engine efciencies or empirical efciency curves commonly used in the current literature for
simulations of CHP systems. The engine performance/efciency calculation algorithm has been coded to a
publicly distributed FORTRAN Dynamic Link Library (DLL), and a user friendly tool has been developed
using Visual Basic programming. Simulation results using the proposed model are validated against manufacturers technical data.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
CHP systems have been widely recognized as a key alternative
for electric and thermal energy generation because of their outstanding energy efciency, reduced environmental emissions,
and relative independence from centralized power grids. As CHP
technology becomes progressively more popular its total energy
capacity increases rapidly [1] and development of effective CHP
system simulation models become increasingly important as they
are used to evaluate year-round performance as well as to optimize
CHP system design and operation. To perform a successful simulation of a CHP system it is important to obtain an accurate model of
the power generation unit1 (PGU) because the overall efciency of
the system is strongly dependent on the efciency of the PGU. Reciprocating ICEs for CHP applications are becoming more ubiquitous
with worldwide increase of residential cogeneration (a.k.a. micro Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 509 375 3956.
1

E-mail address: heejin.cho@pnnl.gov (H. Cho).

The power generation units are also referred as prime movers in the literature.

0306-2619/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2012.07.020

CHP), especially in Europe and Japan. Empirical engine efciencies

or constant efciency curves of internal combustion engines (ICEs)
are frequently used in the simulations for CHP systems performance
evaluation. However, empirical power and thermal efciency data
[2] can be used only when the efciency data are available. Due to
lack of availability of efciency data, constant efciency values for
both electric and thermal PGU performance have been used by many
researchers performing CHP analysis for optimal PGU operation
[38]. However, although constant efciency models are easy to
implement, they may not provide realistic results for performance
evaluation and optimization of operation. The constant engine efciency models are applicable to constant load conditions but when
loading conditions are not constant, varying power output efciency
models are required for CHP system performance simulations. To
improve the accuracy of the engine efciency calculations, Fumo
et al. [9] and Wang et al. [10] used third order polynomial curve
t equations based on empirical data. Similarly, Onovwiona et al.
[11] and Aussant et al. [12] used second order polynomial curve t
equations to assess both electric and thermal PGU performance
while Meybodi and Behnia [13] used third order polynomial curve

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K.T. Yun et al. / Applied Energy 102 (2013) 327335

Nomenclature
a
Av
bc
bmep
CD
cp
cv
Efuel
fmep
H
h
ht
hex
imep
IVC
lc
LHVfuel
Lv
mfuel
mex
n
nw
Ne
P
Pm
Pmax
Powerout
Qc
Qcool
Qex
Qht
Qloss

Wiebe efciency factor

valve area
cylinder bore (m)
break mean effective pressure (kPa)
valve discharge coefcient
specic heat at constant pressure (kJ/kg K)
specic heat at constant volume (kJ/kg K)
fuel energy
friction mean effective pressure (kPa)
enthalpy
specic enthalpy
heat transfer coefcient
enthalpy of exhaust gas
indicated mean effective pressure (kPa)
intake valve closure
length of the connecting rod (m)
lower heating value of fuel (kJ/kg)
valve lift (m)
mass of fuel (kg)
mass of exhaust gas (kg)
number of cylinders
Wiebe form factor
engine speed (rev/s)
in-cylinder pressure (kPa)
motored cylinder pressure (kPa)
maximum cylinder pressure (kPa)
power output
heat release during combustion process
heat rejection to coolant
heat rejection through exhaust gas
net heat transfer of cylinder wall
heat loss to surrounding environment

t equations for both electric and thermal efciency. Even when

using more accurate efciency curves, solving for the optimal PGU
operation mode in CHP systems is not a trivial task. Non-linear
power and thermal efciency curves make it difcult to use linear
programming techniques, which, in practice, are much more convenient than non-linear solvers. In the current literature [1418], IC
engine models are based on linear ts between fuel input and power
output variables, and the advantages of using a linear equation in the
CHP system simulations and evaluations are well described. The linear equations can be obtained either from manufactures experimental data for ICEs and onsite experiments. Although the linear
equations simplify the power output calculation process based on
the fuel input, the thermal efciency of each CHP system component
is still assumed to be constant [1418]. Even though empirical efciency models such as the linear regression models described previously can provide accurate results for a specic ICE, the development
of those models may require time-consuming and costly experiments to acquire the engine performance data. Furthermore, the design and component selection process involves consideration of
several ICE alternatives and the data for these alternatives may not
be readily available. For this reason, a reliable and simple model
including both varying thermal and electric efciency characteristics
would be a convenient tool used in CHP performance simulations. In
this paper, instead of directly using efciency based calculations, linear power generation and heat recovery models relating the fuel input to resulting power output and recovered heat are proposed to
provide performance/efciency maps for both electrical power output and useful thermal output for various capacities of reciprocating
ICEs. These linear models can be conveniently used to solve for the
optimal PGU operation mode by employing a linear solver. Further-

Qt
rc
R
sc
T
Tw
V
Vd
w
Wshaft
U
u

total heat generation during combustion process

compression ratio
gas constant (kJ/kg K)
stroke (m)
gas temperature (K)
cylinder wall temperature (K)
cylinder volume (m3)
displacement volume (m3)
average gas velocity (m/s)
shaft work
internal energy
specic internal energy

Symbols

gcool
gex
ggen
gpower
c
h
hs
hd

fuel-to-coolant-energy conversion efciency

fuel-to-exhaust-energy conversion efciency
generator efciency
fuel-to-power conversion efciency
specic heat ratio (= cp/cv)
crank angle
crank angle at start of combustion
crank angle of combustion duration

Subscripts
iv
intake valve
ev
exhaust valve
o
initial condition
s
stagnation condition
v
valve condition

more, it is important to realize that by substituting the efciency

relationship between input fuel and power generation (or, alternatively, input fuel and heat recovery) into the linear power generation
and heat recovery equations and re-arranging, it is possible to obtain
explicit non-linear equations for the IC engine efciencies as function of the power generation (or heat recovery). A case study is provided to illustrate the capabilities and benets of the proposed
models. The simulation results have been validated with manufacturers technical data. In addition, the calculation algorithm is coded
in FORTRAN and a user-friendly tool has been developed in Visual
Basic to facilitate the implementation of the proposed model.
2. Internal combustion engine model
Following the thermodynamic and gas exchange models [19
21], the contents of an engine cylinder are modeled as an open system in this section. The objective of these models is to predict an
overall rst law energy balance for an engine at rated engine speed,
i.e., predict performance/efciency maps for both electrical power
output and useful thermal output, based on the simulation results
of pressure, temperature, an mass in the cylinder from the thermodynamic model. The model presented in this paper is developed for
in-line four-stroke and n-cylinder engines and is not for V-type,
turbocharged, and/or supercharged engines.
2.1. Engine energy balance
An engine energy balance can be expressed as:

_ shaft Q_ ex Q_ cool Q_ loss

E_ fuel W

K.T. Yun et al. / Applied Energy 102 (2013) 327335

329

Fig. 1. Valve lift (%) and discharge coefcient.

Table 1
Engine-generator set manufacturers specication.
Parameter

Value

Rated power output

Maximum power at rated RPM
Cylinder conguration
Displacement (Vd)
Cylinder bore (b)
Cylinder stroke (sc)
Compression ratio (rc)
Rated engine speed (Ne)
Generator efciency (ggen)

15 kW
17.4 kW
In-line 4
1.82E3 m3 (1.82 L)
0.084 m
0.082 m
8.5
30 rev/s (1800 rpm)
0.88

where E_ fuel is the rate of fuel energy (fuel mass ow rate  lower
_ shaft is the rate of shaft work, Q_ ex is the rate of heat
heating value), W
rejection through the exhaust gas, Q_ cool is the rate of heat transfer
through the cylinder wall to coolant, and, Q_ loss is the rate of heat loss
to the surrounding environment. Each term in the right hand side of
Eq. (1) can be determined using numerical solutions (e.g., temperature, pressure, and mass trapped in the cylinder) obtained from the
model that will be described late in this paper in Section 2.2.
2.1.1. Power generation
The rate of shaft work per cylinder (a.k.a. break power) can be
determined as:

_ shaft bmep V d Ne
W
2

The imep is the net work per cycle divided by the displacement
volume per cycle and can be determined by

H
imep

PdV
Vd

fmep 0:061 1:167  Pmax 4:9  106 Ne

where Pmax is the maximum cylinder pressure in kPa, and Ne is the

engine speed in rev/s. The power output can be determined by considering number of cylinders (i.e., a factor of n) and generator
efciency:

_ out n  W
_ shaft  g
W
gen

The fuel-to-power conversion efciency of power generation

units is then

_
W

gpower _ out
Efuel

2.1.2. Thermal energy availability

Thermal energy rejected through the exhaust gas for four-cylinder engines can be evaluated as:

N
_ ex hex e
Q_ ex n  m
2

_ ex is the exhaust gas mass ow rate and hex is the enthalpy

where m
of exhaust gas. The fuel-to-exhaust-energy conversion efciency is
then

Q_

where bmep is break mean effective pressure, Vd is the displacement

volume, and Ne is the engine speed in rev/s. The bmep is the external
shaft work per unit volume done by the engine and it can be expressed by the difference between the indicated mean effective
pressure (imep) and the friction mean effective pressure (fmep):

bmep imep  fmep

where P and V, pressure and volume, respectively, are obtained

from the analysis in Section 2.2. The fmep is the friction force per
unit area due to mechanical and accessory friction. Using Winterbones equation [22], fmep can be expressed as:

gex _ ex
Efuel

The rate of heat rejection to the coolant for the four cylinders is
estimated as:

dQ ht Ne
Q_ cool n 
dh 2

10

where dQht/dh is the rate of heat transfer between the in-cylinder

gas mixture and the cylinder walls with respect to crank angle (h)
which is evaluated in Section 2.2.3. The fuel-to-coolant-energy conversion efciency is then

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K.T. Yun et al. / Applied Energy 102 (2013) 327335

Q_

Table 2
Estimated engine parameters.

gcool _ cool
Efuel

Parameter

Value

Initial pressure (Po)

Initial temperature (To)
Initial mass (mo)
Cylinder wall temperature (Tw)
Lower heating value (LHV)
Density of natural gas (qNG)
Connecting rod length (lc)
Start of combustion (hs)
Burn duration (hd)
Intake valve head diameter(Div)
Exhaust valve head diameter(Dev)
Maximum valve lift (Lv)
Wiebe efciency factor (a)
Wiebe form factor (nw)

101.325 kPa (1 atm)

298 K
6.102  104 kg
349 K (76 C)
48000 kJ/kg
0.72 kg/m3
0.126 m
40 deg BTDC
40 deg
0.43  b
0.35  b
0.25  Dv
5*
2*

Ref. [19,25].

Table 3
Manufacturers engine-generator set technical data.
Fuel consumption (m3/h)

Load

6.3
4.7
3.3
Exhaust gas temperature
at rated power

100% (15 kW)

75% (11.25 kW)
50% (7.5 kW)
885 K

11

Note that a conversion factor, Ne/2, is used in Eqs. (2), (8), and
(10) to convert (per degree) to (per second) for four-stroke engines
since the exhaust gas ow rate and heat transfer rate are obtained
in J/deg from the thermodynamic engine model described in Section 2.2. A factor of n is used in Eqs. (6), (8), and (10) to take account the number of cylinder.
2.2. Thermodynamic Model
A single-zone thermodynamic model of an internal combustion
engine is presented below. The objective of this model is to obtain
histories of temperature (T), pressure (P), and mass trapped (m) in
the cylinder for a full cycle of the crank angle (h). Applying the rst
law of thermodynamics for an open system to an engine cylinder
yields

dU dQ dW X dHi

dh
dh
dh
dh
i

12

where the subscript i refers to an inlet or outlet of the open system

and the net heat into the cylinder (Q) is the difference between the
chemical heat release during the combustion process (Qc) and the
heat transfer through the cylinder walls (Qht). Assuming ideal gas
behavior, Eq. (12) can be expressed in terms of the cylinder temperature (T) with respect to crank angle (h):

Fig. 2. Flow chart of IC engine modeling process.

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K.T. Yun et al. / Applied Energy 102 (2013) 327335



dT
dm dQ c dQ ht mRT dV X
dmi
u

mcv
hi


dh
dh
V dh
dh
dh
dh
i

13

where m is the mass of gas in the cylinder, cv is the specic heat at

constant volume, R is the gas constant, V is the cylinder volume, and
h is enthalpy.

sc
y lc 
2

"

2
lc

#
0:5
s 2
sc
c
2

 sinh
cosh
2
2

15

where lc is the length of the connecting rod (m).

2.2.1. Engine geometry

The cylinder volume can be expressed by

where Vd is the displacement volume, r is the compression ratio, sc

is the stroke, and y(h) is the instantaneous stroke given by the following equation.

Vd
Vd
y
r  1 sc

14

2.2.2. Net heat release

The chemical heat release rate is calculated using the mass burn
rate as follows:

dQ c
dxb
Qt
dh
dh
TDC

20

P (kPa)

6000

4000

2000

100

200

400

600

Heat rejection rate to coolant (kW)

8000

16

(deg)

Simulation results
Linear fit of simulation results

15

10

20

40

Fig. 3. Cylinder pressure (kPa) at rated power.

60

80

Fuel energy (kW)

Fig. 6. Heat rejection rate through exhaust gas (kW) vs. fuel energy (kW).

3000

TDC

T (K)

2000

1000

298

400

200

600

Heat rejection rate to coolant (kW)

20

(deg)

Simulation results
Linear fit of simulation results

15

10

20

40

Fig. 4. Cylinder temperature (K) at rated power.

60

80

Fuel energy (kW)

Fig. 7. Heat rejection rate to coolant (kW) vs. fuel energy (kW).

20

Exhaust Gas Temperuature (K)

Power output (kW)

Simulation results
Linear fit of simulation results
Manufacturers technical data

15

10

20

40

60

Fuel energy (kW)

Fig. 5. Power output (kW) vs. fuel energy (kW).

80

Simulation results
Linear fit of simulation results
Manufacturers experimental data

1000

500

10

15

Power Ouput (kW)

Fig. 8. Averaged exhaust gas temperature (K) vs. power output (kW).

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K.T. Yun et al. / Applied Energy 102 (2013) 327335

Table 4
Fuel energy prediction from the proposed model compared with manufacturers data for various capacity engines.
Fuel energy
25% Part load

50% Part load

75% Part load

Full load (100%)

25 kW

Manufacturers Data
Model Prediction
Error

31.7 kW
29.0 kW
8.4%

57.7 kW
54.9 kW
4.9%

84.1 kW
80.8 kW
4.0%

105.2 kW
106.6 kW
1.3%

46 kW

Manufacturers Data
Model Prediction
Error

60.1 kW
51.4 kW
14.4%

108.4 kW
98.5 kW
9.2%

1521.2 kW
145.5 kW
3.8%

192.0%
192.5 kW
0.3%

80 kW

Manufacturers Data
Model Prediction
Error

91.4 kW
100.2 kW
9.6%

175.8 kW
173.8 kW
1.2%

244.7 kW
247.4 kW
1.1%

338.2 kW
321.1 kW
5.1%

100 kW

Manufacturers Data
Model Prediction
Error

108.7 kW
105.5 kW
3.0%

209.0 kW
194.1 kW
7.1%

290.4 kW
282.8 kW
2.6%

369.3 kW
371.5 kW
0.6%

where Qt is the total chemical energy released during the combustion process given by

Q t mfuel  LHV fuel

17

and xb is the mass burned fraction, which is expressed in terms of

the Wiebe function

"


n 1 #
h  hs w
xb 1  exp a
hd

18

In Eq. (17), mfuel is the mass of fuel trapped in the cylinder in one
engine cycle, and LHVfuel is the lower heating value of fuel. In Eq.
(18), a and nw are Wiebe function parameters, hs is the crank angle
at the start of combustion, and hd is the combustion duration in
crank angle degrees.
2.2.3. Net heat transfer
The rate of heat transfer between the in-cylinder gas mixture
and the cylinder walls is evaluated as follows:

dQ ht ht  Aw  T  T w 

2p  Ne
dh

19

where T is the mean gas absolute temperature in the cylinder in K,

Tw is the cylinder wall absolute temperature in K, Aw is the instantaneous surface area available for heat transfer, and ht is the heat
transfer coefcient which can be determined using Woschnis correlation [23]:
0:2 0:55

ht 3:26P0:8 w0:8 b

Fig. 9. Percentage of fuel energy (%) vs. power output (kW).

20

In Eq. (20) b is the cylinder bore and w is the average in-cylinder gas
velocity during combustion in m/s, which is calculated using the
following expression [23]:

w b1 2Ne sc b2

V dT o
P  Pm
Po V o

Table 5
Energy balance for automotive engines at maximum power [19].
Percentage of fuel energy

21

In Eq. (21), Vd is the displaced volume, Po, Vo, and To are the initial
pressure, volume, and temperature, b1 = 2.28 and b2 = 3.24  103
are model constants, and Pm is the motoring pressure in kPa at a given crank angle, which is obtained by assuming a polytropic compression process from intake valve closure.
2.2.4. Gas Property Relationships
The ratio of specic heats (c) for the air and fuel mixture as a
function of temperature can be determined using Zucrow and Hoffmans equation [24]. A quadratic interpolation is used to simplify
their equation as

SI engine
Diesel engine

_ shaft
W

Q_ ex

Q_ cool

Q_ loss

2528
3438

3445
2235

1726
1635

515
38

cT 1:458  1:628  104  T 4:139  108  T 2

22

where T is the cylinder temperature in K. The specic heats at constant volume is given by

cv T

cT  1

23

K.T. Yun et al. / Applied Energy 102 (2013) 327335

333

Fig. 10. Input platform of the engine simulation program.

The specic internal energy and enthalpy are dened as

uT

hT

dT

24

R  cT
dT
cT  1

25

cT  1
Z

2.2.5. Gas exchange process

The intake and exhaust gas exchange process can be modeled
using the equations for gas ow through a nozzle. The mass ow
rate is given by [19]

v
"
 1=c u
 c1=c #
u 2c
dm C D Av P s Pv
Pv
t
p
1
c1
dh Ne RT s Ps
Ps

26a

For a choked ow

dm

dh

Av

C D Av P s
"
#
 2cc1
p 1=2
1
2
Ne RT s c
1  c1

pD2v
4

if

c

c1
Pv
2
6
Ps
c1

26b

26c

where the subscript s refers to the stagnation condition, the subscript v refers to the valve condition, CD is the valve discharge coefcient, and Av is the reference valve area. The discharge coefcients,

CD, are based on the valve head diameter and the typical valve lift
(Lv) prole as shown in Fig. 1 [19,25]. For intake ow, the stagnation
conditions refer to conditions in the intake port. For exhaust ow,
the stagnation conditions refer to conditions in the cylinder. Assuming an ideal gas behavior (PV = mRT), the cylinder pressure (Pv for intake ow and Ps for exhaust ow in Eqs. (26)) can be expressed in
terms of volume, temperature, and mass in the cylinder.
3. Test engine specication
The engine model illustrated in Section 2 is used to simulate the
response of a natural gas engine-generator set. The manufacturers
specications for the engine and generator are shown in Table 1.
Other parameters used in the simulation are presented in Table 2.
Experimental data for the engine-generator set from the manufacturer are presented in Table 3. These results are used to compare to
the simulation results in Section 4.
4. Simulation results
The engine model described in Section 2 is congured and validated against the engine specications shown in Section 3. A owchart that summarizes the proposed engine model is presented in
Fig. 2. The results obtained from the simulation are presented in
this section. The cylinder gas temperature (T) and mass (m) can
be obtained by applying a numerical solver, e.g., a fourth-order
RungeKutta solver, to Eqs. (13) and (26) in Section 2. The cylinder
pressure (P) is obtained from the ideal gas law. The cylinder pres-

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K.T. Yun et al. / Applied Energy 102 (2013) 327335

Fig. 11. Output platform of the engine simulation program.

sure and temperature proles at rated power with respect to crank

angle are illustrated in Figs. 3 and 4. From the results of the air
pressure and temperature in the cylinder, the brake power and
friction power can be obtained by using Eqs. (2)(5). However, a
substantial part of the friction power (50%) is dissipated between
the piston and piston rings and cylinder wall and is transferred
to the cooling medium as coolant energy [19]. Using Eqs. (6), (8),
and (10), the fuel energy conversion to power, exhaust energy,
and coolant energy are obtained as shown in Figs. 57, respectively. These plots provide plausible energy conversion factors (instead of arbitrarily assigning energy partitions such as 30%
mechanical from the fuel, etc.) that can be used in CHP system simulations, especially for the heat recovery conversion and for the entire range of operation of the engine. The stagnation conditions in
the exhaust ow were assumed to be the conditions in-cylinder
(see Section 2.2.4). Thus, the exhaust gas temperature at each
power output can be approximated averaging the cylinder gas
temperatures. For example, the exhaust gas temperature at rated
power can be approximated by averaging the cylinder gas temperatures shown in Fig. 4. The exhaust gas temperature as a function
of power output and its linear t are illustrated in Fig. 8. The information presented in Fig. 8 can be effectively used in the design of
heat exchangers to extract heat from the exhaust gas and in an
exergy analysis of CHP systems. In Figs. 5 and 8, the simulation re-

sults are compared to the manufacturers technical data2 to check

the feasibility of the model. The gures illustrate that the experimental results from the manufacturer agree well with the predicted
results from the proposed model. In this study, a modeling uncertainty analysis to estimate the condence levels in the results is
not carried out because it is beyond the scope of this work. In a previous study by Cho et al. [26], a comprehensive uncertainty analysis
of a dynamic engine model was carried out and demonstrated that
the condence levels of cylinder pressure at each crank angle can
be determined. However, this dynamic uncertainty of cylinder pressure cannot not be directly translated into the uncertainties associated with power and thermal energy outputs. Although the
uncertainty analysis is not provided in this study, the various capacity engines are evaluated using the proposed model and compared
against the manufacturers data as shown in Table 4. Results demonstrate that the proposed model can provide reliable outcomes and
can be applied to larger capacity engines. However, the proposed
2
In general, the manufacturers technical data of ICEs are obtained from experiments using properly calibrated fuel mass ow rate meters and power meters (a.k.a.
dynamometers). From the manufacturers manuals, it is found that accuracy of
properly calibrated fuel mass ow meters is in a range of 0.1% to 1.0%, while
accuracy of properly calibrated power meters is in a range of 0.25% to 1.0%. Within
the accuracy of metering devices, it can be concluded that the manufacturers
technical data of ICEs are reliable.

K.T. Yun et al. / Applied Energy 102 (2013) 327335

model needs to be carefully used as mentioned in the beginning of

Section 2 since it does not necessarily provide accurate results for
V-type, turbo-charged and/or super-charged engines.
Using Eqs. (7), (9), and (11), the conversion efciencies for
power, exhaust energy, and coolant energy can be calculated.
Based on these results, fuel energy partition can be illustrated in
Fig. 9 with respect to power output of the engine. Fig. 9 illustrates
the energy partition at the maximum power (i.e., 17.4 kW). The energy partition in Fig. 9 is consistent with the typical energy balance
for automotive engines at maximum power predicted by Heywood
[19] and shown in Table 5. The power output is converted to the
rate of shaft work by dividing by the generator efciency
(ggen = 0.883). The rate of shaft work at the maximum power level
is found to be 27.8%, which falls within the range of the predicted
value for SI engines in Table 5. Percentages of fuel energy for exhaust energy, coolant energy, and net energy losses also fall within
or near the range of the predicted values for SI engines in Table 5.

5. Tool development
The engine model can provide a performance/efciency map,
which is useful when deciding the optimal sizing of the PGU or
the optimal operation strategy for CHP systems. However, implementing the numerical calculations can prove to be tedious and
difcult for some users. For this reason, a user-friendly engine
model tool3 has been developed using FORTRAN. A Visual Basic
interface is used to present a user-friendly input and output platform
for the tool. As a result, engine simulation results are readily available through the user-friendly visual interface. Fig. 10 shows the input platform that includes input variables for the engine simulation.
In this platform, the engine specication and manufacturers experimental data are entered. For users convenience, as shown in Fig. 10,
the basic information, typically supplied by the IC engine manufacturers, is separated from other engine information. Users can change
the input values depending on the engine specication. However,
when information is not available, users can easily use default values
as shown in the Parameters box in Fig. 10. Besides, the manufacturers data are used to check the validity of the engine simulation
results. Fig. 11 shows the output platform that illustrates the same
simulation results described in Section 4.

6. Conclusions
This paper presented a power generation and heat recovery
model of reciprocating ICE for CHP Applications. The developed
model can be used to obtain performance/efciency maps for both
electrical power output and useful thermal output for various engine capacities. The model is intended for PGU sizing for CHP systems as well as a tool for designing control strategies for CHP
systems. The model has the potential to provide more realistic design calculations and control strategies as compared to those based
on a constant PGU efciency. Manufacturers data from a 15-kW
engine-generator set was used to verify the model. In addition, a
distributable engine performance/efciency map calculation tool
has been developed and made available to users interested in cal-

3
This tool is available at the website of MicroCHP & Bio-Fuel Center at Mississippi
State University: microchp.msstate.edu/enginetool.html.

335

culating electrical and thermal performance of an engine for CHP

applications.
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