A Comparative Study of the Conventional Poppet Valve and the Proposed Novel Independent Rotary Valve Configurations for Improving Efficiency of the Internal Combustion Engine

About nine million barrels of gasoline are consumed daily by automobile engines. Out of this, roughly 2.25 million barrels are effectively used by the engine to generate power, whereas the rest is wasted due to engine inefficiencies. There is a dire need to bring up a more efficient engine, since even an effort for a 1% increase in efficiency would result in savings of almost $6 million daily worldwide. In this study, first, a conventional poppet valve engine configuration for a 70cc engine was analyzed. Then, based on the engine efficiency contributing parameters, a novel Independent Rotary Valve (IRV) engine configuration was proposed. The proposed engine configuration was analyzed for the same 70cc engine. The LOTUS Engine software was used for the thermodynamic investigation of intake valve closing angle for getting maximum values of volumetric efficiency, brake power, and brake torque at different speeds and intake valve closing angles. It has been found that the proposed engine configuration resulted in approximately 1.165% increase in thermal efficiency by a decrease in air-fuel mixture pumping work. In addition, a 13% increase in volumetric efficiency, a 13% increase in brake torque, and an 18% increase in brake power were found, through the use of independent valve actuation. Also, an increase in mechanical efficiency is expected, due to the added simplicity of the proposed IRV as compared to the conventional poppet valve system. This increase has been verified analytically and by numerical modeling performed in ANSYS FLUENT. The proposed IRV engine configuration is thus a more efficient, more powerful, less complicated, more stable, and an environmentally safer engine.