This study compares two methods which are most frequently used, at present, for the solution of an unsteady flow in the pipe system of internal combustion engines. These are the method of characteristic and the two step Lax-Wendroff method.
These Methods are applied to a homentropic flow of "de Haller" problem. And a single cylinder engine flow problem is simulated by these methods as a nonhomentropic flow example.
The results show that the two step Lax-Wendroff method is faster and has better mass conserving ability than the method of characteristic. In the case of the two step Lax-Wendroff method Flux-Corrected Transport(FCT) is used to prevent nonphysical oscillation near the discontinuities, which has been demonstrated in another example of a simple shock tube problem.
