Development of a Web-Based Open Source CAE Platform for Simulation of IC Engines

Abstract

Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) software has become an essential element in design, simulation, manufacturing and even marketing in the automotive industry as well as in other major manufacturing companies. Multi-physics simulation of IC engines may be one of the most challenging areas both technically and scientifically, since it requires sound basis and experience for diverse physical phenomena. There are quite a few commercial softwares currently available for various elements of CAE, which require substantial investment cost for licensing, personnel and computing facilities. There is a current consensus for the need of low cost CAE based on open sources through which professionals may contribute to new modeling features and validation through a free access web-based platform. There are several high quality open sources available under General Public Licence (GNU-GPL) which allow free utilization and development. Some of them have features as competitive as their commercial counterparts, whereas their interface in general may not be as user-friendly as most commercial software. In this work, we introduce a web-based platform with selected open source programs and their performance will be shown for some example cases. All these programs are downloadable, while remote job access and post-processing can be performed by cloud computing facilities.