Simulation and experimental validation of the flow field at the entrance and within the filter housing of a production spark-ignition engine

• The fluid dynamic behaviour of the filter housing of a production ICE is studied.
• A 3D CFD analysis is performed and an experimental validation is proposed.
• The adopted CFD model appears very accurate for complex industrial applications.
• The effect of the filter element on the mean flow is investigated.

The paper aims to analyse the flow field at the entrance and within the filter housing of a production four-cylinder, spark-ignition engine during the intake phase. To this purpose a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analysis was carried out adopting a finite volume code, while an experimental activity was performed at a steady flow rig to validate the computational model.The comparison between numerical data and experimental measurements showed a good agreement and it demonstrated the capabilities of the proposed CFD model to predict in detail the flow field within a complex production automobile component that largely influences the efficiency and reliability of actual internal combustion engines (ICEs).