Can a quantitative simulation of an Otto engine be accurately rendered by a simple Novikov model with heat leak (Q1876274)

The authors present and discuss a modelisation of a real engine which takes into account both the heat conduction, exhaust losses, frictional losses, gas dynamics and gas exchanges inside the engine. They start their paper describing the mechanical problem including the frictional forces. They then consider the combustion of the fuel and the heat losses through a classical Newtonian heat transfer law. They finally get a system of coupled nonlinear differential equations and an initial speed is given. For the numerical resolution of the problem, they consider a multi-step method. The applied load is allowed to vary as a linear relation between the speed and the torque. In the third part of the paper, the authors use the data they obtain in order to test an endoreversible model: the Novikov engine with heat-leak. They produce several figures illustrating their computations which justify the use of such a model.