KIVA (software)

Last updated
KIVA
Developer(s) Los Alamos National Laboratory
Initial release1985;39 years ago (1985)
Stable release
KIVA-4mpi / 2009;15 years ago (2009)
Operating system Linux, Unix, Windows
Available in Fortran
Type Physics
License Proprietary
Website www.lanl.gov/projects/feynman-center/deploying-innovation/intellectual-property/software-tools/kiva/index.php

KIVA is a family of Fortran-based computational fluid dynamics software developed by Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The software predicts complex fuel and air flows as well as ignition, combustion, and pollutant-formation processes in engines. The KIVA models have been used to understand combustion chemistry processes, such as auto-ignition of fuels, and to optimize diesel engines for high efficiency and low emissions. General Motors has used KIVA in the development of direct-injection, stratified charge gasoline engines as well as the fast burn, homogeneous-charge gasoline engine. [1] Cummins reduced development time and cost by 10%–15% using KIVA to develop its high-efficiency 2007 ISB 6.7-L diesel engine that was able to meet 2010 emission standards in 2007. At the same time, the company realized a more robust design and improved fuel economy while meeting all environmental and customer constraints. [2]

Contents

History

LANL's Computational Fluid Dynamics expertise hails from the very beginning of the Manhattan Project in the 1940s. When the United States found itself in the midst of the first energy crisis in the 1970s, this core Laboratory capability transformed into KIVA, an internal combustion engine modeling tool designed to help make automotive engines more fuel-efficient and cleaner-burning. A "kiva" is actually a round Pueblo ceremonial chamber that is set underground and entered from above by means of a ladder through its roof; drawing on LANL's southwestern heritage, an analogy is made with the typical engine cylinder in which the entrance and exit of gases is achieved through valves set in the cylinder. [3]

The first public release of KIVA was made in 1985 through the National Energy Software Center (NESC) at Argonne National Laboratory, which served at the time as the official distribution hub for Department of Energy-sponsored software. Distribution of KIVA continued through the Energy Science and Technology Software Center (ESTSC) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee until 2008, when distribution of multiple versions of KIVA returned to LANL's Technology Transfer Division (TT). [4] KIVA is used by hundreds of institutions worldwide, including the Big Three U.S. auto makers, [1] [5] [6] Cummins, [2] Caterpillar, [7] and various federal laboratories. [1] [8]

Overview

Fuel economy is heavily dependent upon engine efficiency, which in turn depends to a large degree on how fuel is burned within the cylinders of the engine. Higher in-cylinder pressures and temperatures lead to increased fuel economy, but they also create more difficulty in controlling the combustion process. Poorly controlled and incomplete combustion can cause higher levels of emissions and lower engine efficiencies.

In order to optimize combustion processes, engine designers have traditionally undertaken manual engine modifications, conducted testing, and analyzed the results. This iterative process is painstakingly slow, costly, and does not lend itself to identifying the optimal engine design specifications. In response to these problems, Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists developed KIVA, an advanced computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling code that accurately simulates the in-cylinder processes of engines.

KIVA, a transient, three-dimensional, multiphase, multicomponent code for the analysis of chemically reacting flows with sprays has been under development at LANL for decades. The code uses an Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) methodology on a staggered grid, and discretizes space using the finite volume method. The code uses an implicit time-advancement with the exception of the advective terms that are cast in an explicit but second-order monotonicity-preserving manner. Also, the convection calculations can be subcycled in the desired regions to avoid restricting the time step due to Courant conditions.

KIVA's functionality extends from low speeds to supersonic flows for both laminar and turbulent regimes. Transport and chemical reactions for an arbitrary number of species and their chemical reactions is provided. A stochastic particle method is used to calculate evaporating liquid sprays, including the effects of droplet collisions, agglomeration, and aerodynamic breakups.

Although specifically designed for simulating internal combustion engines, the modularity of the code facilitates easy modifications for solving a variety of hydrodynamics problems involving chemical reactions. The versatility and range of features have made KIVA programs attractive to a variety of non-engine applications as well; these range from convection towers to modeling silicon dioxide condensation in high pressure oxidation chambers. Other applications have included the analysis of flows in automotive catalytic converters, power plant smokestack cleaning, pyrolytic treatment of biomass, design of fire suppression systems, Pulsed Detonation Engines (PDEs), stationary burners, aerosol dispersion, and design of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems. The code has found a widespread application in the automotive industry.

Versions

KIVA-3V

Fuel impingement in an engine cylinder modeled with KIVA-3V. Fuel impingement in an engine cylinder modeled with KIVA-3V.gif
Fuel impingement in an engine cylinder modeled with KIVA-3V.

KIVA-3V is the most mature version of KIVA still maintained and distributed through LANL; it is an improved version of the earlier Federal Laboratory Consortium Excellence in Technology Transfer Award-winning KIVA3 (1993), extended to model vertical or canted valves in the cylinder head of a gasoline or diesel engine. [9] KIVA3, in turn, was based on the earlier KIVA2 (1989) and used the same numerical solution procedure and solved the same types of equations. [10]

KIVA-3V uses a block-structured mesh with connectivity defined through indirect addressing. The departure from a single rectangular structure in logical space allows complex geometries to be modeled with significantly greater efficiency because large regions of deactivated cells are no longer necessary. Cell-face boundary conditions permit greater flexibility and simplification in the application of boundary conditions. KIVA-3V also contains a number of significant improvements over its predecessors. New features enhanced the robustness, efficiency, and usefulness of the overall program for engine modeling. Automatic restart of the cycle with a reduced timestep in case of iteration limit or temperature overflow effectively reduced code crashes. A new option provided automatic deactivation of a port region when it is closed from the cylinder and reactivation when it communicates with the cylinder. Extensions to the particle-based liquid wall film model made the model more complete and a split injection option was also added. A new subroutine monitors the liquid and gaseous fuel phases and energy balance data and emissions are monitored and printed. In addition, new features were added to the LANL-developed grid generator, K3PREP, and the KIVA graphics post processor, K3POST. [10]

KIVA-4

KIVA-4 is maintained and distributed through LANL. While KIVA-4 maintains the full generality of KIVA-3V, it adds the capability of computing with unstructured grids. Unstructured grids can be generated more easily than structured grids for complex geometries. The unstructured grids may be composed of a variety of elements including hexahedra, prisms, pyramids, and tetrahedra. However, the numerical accuracy diminishes when the grid is not composed of hexahedra. KIVA-4 was developed to work with the many geometries accommodated within KIVA-3V, which includes 2D axisymmetric, 2D planar, 3D axisymmetric sector geometries, and full 3D geometries. KIVA-4 also features a multicomponent fuel evaporation algorithm. Many of the numerical algorithms in KIVA-3V generalize properly to unstructured meshes; however, fundamental changes were needed in the solution of the pressure equation and the fluxing of momentum. In addition, KIVA-4 loops over cell faces to compute diffusion terms. [11]

KIVA-4mpi

Recently, LANL researchers developed KIVA-4mpi, a parallel version of KIVA-4, and the most advanced version of KIVA maintained and distributed by LANL. KIVA-4mpi also solves chemically reacting, turbulent, multi-phase viscous flows, but does this on multiple computer processors with a distributed computational domain (grid). KIVA-4mpi internal combustion engine modeling capabilities are the same as that of KIVA-4, and are based on the KIVA-4 unstructured grid code. The software is well suited for modeling internal combustion engines on multiple processors using the message passing interface (MPI). [12] On August 9, 2011, LANL honored the authors of KIVA-4mpi with the Distinguished Copyright Award for demonstrating a breadth of commercial applications, potential to create economic value, and the highest level of technical excellence. [13]

KIVA-EXEC

KIVA-EXEC is a free, reduced-functionality executable-only trial version of KIVA-4. KIVA-EXEC has all the performance of Los Alamos National Laboratory's premier KIVA-4 code, but with a 45K cell limitation. [14] KIVA-EXEC is perfect for beginners who do not need or intend to modify the source code. [15]

KIVA videos

Alternative software

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Engine</span> Machine that converts one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy (of motion)

An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Argonne National Laboratory</span> American science and engineering research laboratory in Illinois

Argonne National Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center in Lemont, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1946, the laboratory is owned by the United States Department of Energy and administered by UChicago Argonne LLC of the University of Chicago. The facility is the largest national laboratory in the Midwest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Computational fluid dynamics</span> Analysis and solving of problems that involve fluid flows

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical analysis and data structures to analyze and solve problems that involve fluid flows. Computers are used to perform the calculations required to simulate the free-stream flow of the fluid, and the interaction of the fluid with surfaces defined by boundary conditions. With high-speed supercomputers, better solutions can be achieved, and are often required to solve the largest and most complex problems. Ongoing research yields software that improves the accuracy and speed of complex simulation scenarios such as transonic or turbulent flows. Initial validation of such software is typically performed using experimental apparatus such as wind tunnels. In addition, previously performed analytical or empirical analysis of a particular problem can be used for comparison. A final validation is often performed using full-scale testing, such as flight tests.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brayton cycle</span> Thermodynamic cycle

The Brayton cycle, also known as the Joule cycle, is a thermodynamic cycle that describes the operation of certain heat engines that have air or some other gas as their working fluid. It is characterized by isentropic compression and expansion, and isobaric heat addition and rejection, though practical engines have adiabatic rather than isentropic steps.

Volumetric efficiency (VE) in internal combustion engine engineering is defined as the ratio of the equivalent volume of the fresh air drawn into the cylinder during the intake stroke to the volume of the cylinder itself. The term is also used in other engineering contexts, such as hydraulic pumps and electronic components.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Energy Technology Laboratory</span> United States research lab

The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) is a U.S. national laboratory under the Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy. NETL focuses on applied research for the clean production and use of domestic energy resources. It performs research and development on the supply, efficiency, and environmental constraints of producing and using fossil energy resources while maintaining affordability.

Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) is a form of internal combustion in which well-mixed fuel and oxidizer are compressed to the point of auto-ignition. As in other forms of combustion, this exothermic reaction produces heat that can be transformed into work in a heat engine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Multiscale modeling</span> Mathematical field

Multiscale modeling or multiscale mathematics is the field of solving problems that have important features at multiple scales of time and/or space. Important problems include multiscale modeling of fluids, solids, polymers, proteins, nucleic acids as well as various physical and chemical phenomena.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ParaView</span> Scientific visualization software

ParaView is an open-source multiple-platform application for interactive, scientific visualization. It has a client–server architecture to facilitate remote visualization of datasets, and generates level of detail (LOD) models to maintain interactive frame rates for large datasets. It is an application built on top of the Visualization Toolkit (VTK) libraries. ParaView is an application designed for data parallelism on shared-memory or distributed-memory multicomputers and clusters. It can also be run as a single-computer application.

code_saturne is a general-purpose computational fluid dynamics free computer software package. Developed since 1997 at Électricité de France R&D, code_saturne is distributed under the GNU GPL licence. It is based on a co-located finite-volume approach that accepts meshes with any type of cell and any type of grid structure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reaction Design</span>

Reaction Design is a San Diego-based developer of combustion simulation software used by engineers to design cleaner burning and fuel-efficient combustors and engines, found in everything from automobiles to turbines for power generation and aircraft propulsion to large diesel engines that use pistons the size of rooms to propel ships locomotives. The technology is also used to model spray vaporization in electronic materials processing applications and predict mixing reactions in chemical plants. Ansys, a leader in engineering simulation software, acquired Reaction Design in January 2014.

Flow Science, Inc. is a developer of software for computational fluid dynamics, also known as CFD, a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical methods and algorithms to solve and analyze problems that involve fluid flows.

Grid or mesh is defined as smaller shapes formed after discretisation of geometric domain. Mesh or grid can be in 3- dimension and 2-dimension. Meshing has applications in the fields of geography, designing, computational fluid dynamics. and many more places. The two-dimensional meshing includes simple polygon, polygon with holes, multiple domain and curved domain. In three dimensions there are three types of inputs. They are simple polyhedron, geometrical polyhedron and multiple polyhedrons. Before defining the mesh type it is necessary to understand elements.

Combustion models for CFD refers to combustion models for computational fluid dynamics. Combustion is defined as a chemical reaction in which a hydrocarbon fuel reacts with an oxidant to form products, accompanied with the release of energy in the form of heat. Being the integral part of various engineering applications like: internal combustion engines, aircraft engines, rocket engines, furnaces, and power station combustors, combustion manifests itself as a wide domain during the design, analysis and performance characteristics stages of the above-mentioned applications. With the added complexity of chemical kinetics and achieving reacting flow mixture environment, proper modeling physics has to be incorporated during computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations of combustion. Hence the following discussion presents a general outline of the various adequate models incorporated with the Computational fluid dynamic code to model the process of combustion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SU2 code</span>

SU2 is a suite of open-source software tools written in C++ for the numerical solution of partial differential equations (PDE) and performing PDE-constrained optimization. The primary applications are computational fluid dynamics and aerodynamic shape optimization, but has been extended to treat more general equations such as electrodynamics and chemically reacting flows. SU2 supports continuous and discrete adjoint for calculating the sensitivities/gradients of a scalar field.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internal combustion engine</span> Engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber

An internal combustion engine is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal combustion engine, the expansion of the high-temperature and high-pressure gases produced by combustion applies direct force to some component of the engine. The force is typically applied to pistons, turbine blades, a rotor, or a nozzle. This force moves the component over a distance, transforming chemical energy into kinetic energy which is used to propel, move or power whatever the engine is attached to.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MOOSE (software)</span> Finite element framework software

MOOSE is an object-oriented C++ finite element framework for the development of tightly coupled multiphysics solvers from Idaho National Laboratory. MOOSE makes use of the PETSc non-linear solver package and libmesh to provide the finite element discretization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FEATool Multiphysics</span>

FEATool Multiphysics is a physics, finite element analysis (FEA), and partial differential equation (PDE) simulation toolbox. FEATool Multiphysics features the ability to model fully coupled heat transfer, fluid dynamics, chemical engineering, structural mechanics, fluid-structure interaction (FSI), electromagnetics, as well as user-defined and custom PDE problems in 1D, 2D (axisymmetry), or 3D, all within a graphical user interface (GUI) or optionally as script files. FEATool has been employed and used in academic research, teaching, and industrial engineering simulation contexts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Convergent Science</span> US engineering software company

Convergent Science is an engineering software company which has its headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin. The company develops and supports CONVERGE CFD software, a general purpose computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solver.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Kelly Senecal</span>

Peter Kelly Senecal is a mechanical engineer, academic and author. He is a co-founder and Owner of Convergent Science and one of the original developers of CONVERGE, a computational fluid dynamics software. Additionally, he holds positions as a visiting professor at the University of Oxford, an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and a co-founder and Director of the Computational Chemistry Consortium (C3).

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Modeling of Combustion Processes Improves Engine Efficiency" (PDF). Eere.energy.gov. Retrieved 2016-09-27.
  2. 1 2 "Vehicle Technologies Program : Advanced Combustion Engine R&D: Goals, Strategies, and Top Accomplishments" (PDF). Eere.energy.gov. Retrieved 2016-09-27.
  3. ↑ Amsden, D. C., Amsden, and A. A., The KIVA Story: A Paradigm of Technology Transfer, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication Journal, 36, (4), 190-195, December 1993
  4. ↑ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-10-26. Retrieved 2011-10-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. ↑ "Computational Engine Modeling". Ornl.gov. Retrieved 2012-12-11.
  6. ↑ "Microsoft Word - cst_paper_revised_FINAL.doc" (PDF). Personal.umich.edu. Retrieved 2016-09-27.
  7. ↑ "Energy Systems | Argonne National Laboratory" (PDF). Transportation.anl.gov. Retrieved 2016-09-27.
  8. ↑ "Automotive HCCI Engine Research" (PDF). Eere.energy.gov. Retrieved 2016-09-27.
  9. ↑ Office of Science (2012-06-21). "1993 Awards | U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC)". Science.energy.gov. Retrieved 2012-12-11.
  10. 1 2 "ESTSC - Find the latest in U.S. Department of Energy Software". Osti.gov. 1999-11-29. Retrieved 2012-12-11.
  11. ↑ Torres, D.J. and Trujillo, M.F., KIVA-4: An unstructured ALE code for compressible gas flow with sprays, Journal of Computational Physics, 2006, vol. 219, pp. 943-975.
  12. ↑ David Torres, Yuanhong Li and Song-Charng Kong, Partitioning Strategies for Parallel KIVA-4 Engine Simulations, Computers and Fluids, 2009
  13. ↑ "Awards recognize outstanding innovation in Technology Transfer". Archived from the original on October 21, 2011. Retrieved October 24, 2011.
  14. ↑ Los Alamos National Laboratory • Established 1943. "KIVA-4: Los Alamos National Laboratory". Lanl.gov. Retrieved 2012-12-11.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  15. ↑ Los Alamos National Laboratory • Est 1943. "LANL | TT | License | Software | 2010". Lanl.gov. Retrieved 2012-12-11.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  16. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-10-31. Retrieved 2011-10-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  17. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-10-31. Retrieved 2011-10-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  18. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-10-31. Retrieved 2011-10-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  19. ↑ "Advanced Simulation Library". ASL. Retrieved 2016-09-27.
  20. ↑ "Clawpack". Depts.washington.edu. 2013-01-21. Retrieved 2016-09-27.
  21. ↑ andrealani. "Home · andrealani/COOLFluiD Wiki · GitHub". Github.com. Retrieved 2016-09-27.
  22. ↑ Archived 2012-06-08 at the Wayback Machine
  23. ↑ "FEATool Multiphysics - Matlab FEM Finite Element Physics Simulation Toolbox". Featool.com. Retrieved 2016-09-27.
  24. ↑ "Gerris Flow Solver". Gfs.sf.net. Retrieved 2016-09-27.
  25. ↑ "Nektar++ – Spectral/hp Element Framework". Nektar.info. Retrieved 2016-06-14.
  26. ↑ "OpenFVM download". SourceForge.net. Retrieved 2016-09-27.
  27. ↑ "SU2, the open-source CFD code". Su2.stanford.edu. doi:10.1016/j.compfluid.2016.02.003 . Retrieved 2016-09-27.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.