ANALYSIS OF INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE PISTON USING ANSYS

A PROJECT REPORT
By

P.VIGNESH
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Certificate of the
MASTER DIPLOMA IN CADD MD3
In

Nelson towers,1st wing,3rd floor

51,NM road,Chennai-600029
SIGNATURE OF INSTRUCTOR
Mr. M.SANTHOSH

SIGNATURE OF BRANCH MANAGER

Mr. K.VINOD KUMAR
SIGNATURE OF PROJECT IN CHARGE

SIGNATURE OF TECHNICAL COORDINATE

Mrs. PRABHA

Mr. M.SANTHOSH

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER NO
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

TITLE
INTRODUCTION
DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION
PRINT SCREEN DRAWINGS
STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS
THERMAL ANALYSIS
MODULE DESCRIPTION
CONCLUSION

PAGE NO
1
2
5
9
16
20
21

INTRODUCTION

Damaged or broken parts are generally too expensive to replace, or are no longer available and this is

particularly relevant to the automobile industry owing to the ever-increasing accidents.

Reverse Engineering (RE) has been successfully employed to for possible recovery of a damaged or broken

part.

Using this method RE we generate a CAD model of a damaged internal combustion (IC) engine piston and

then use the state-of-the-art ANSYS finite element analysis package to perform a linear static and a coupled
thermal-structural analysis of the component.

Necessary boundary conditions were applied for the part model in Ansys to obtain successful results of the

structural and thermal analysis.

Further, a parameteric evaluation of the material properties vis--vis operating conditions is carried out to

generate a relational database for the piston to arrive at optimal design solutions under different operating
conditions.

Ansys can be used in conjunction with finite element analysis to model obsolete product geometries and

material models to redesign and generate new models to suit existing cylinders and other assemblies.

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION

Reverse Engineering:
Its a Systematic evaluation of a product with the purpose of replication. This involves design of a new part, copy
of an existing part, recovery of a damaged or broken part, improvement of model precision and inspection of a
numerical model.
Advantages of the technique include immediate feedback, data reduction, direct generation of geometry and
higher precision of the final product.

Digitization:
Digitization is the process of capturing the data of the physical model and converting it into digital form.

The piston is modeled from cloud points obtained by laser beam scanning. The points are joined by lines and then
creating bounding areas and filling the volume. Later the geometric solid model is imported to PRO-E package.

Modeling:
The scanned patches are transformed into a closed section Piston model using PRO-E software.
CAD model has the flexibility of incorporating changes and interfacing with CAM which increases the production
rates.
The part model created is saved in IGES format and is exported to ANSYS.

Analysis:
A new Ansys workbench is opened and the solid part model that is generated in Pro-E is imported into this
workbench.
Thermal and Structural types have been selected in preference and element type is selected to be solid 20 node 90
The thermal and structural boundary conditions have been applied to the solid Piston model and are meshed using
mesh tools.
Temperatures and loads have been applied in the areas of the model.
The generated mesh is solved and plotted. The nodal solutions and von mises stress patterns are created and
results are recorded and saved.
The generated images clearly explain various properties of the piston such as its deflection at various load
conditions, bending moments, stress values etc.

Datas and boundary conditions used in analysis are as follows:

Structural analysis
E(EX)=13x103N/mm2
Poissons ratio(PRXY) =0.3
Pressure on the top area =600 N/mm2
Element type=solid
brick 8node 45 (solid45)
Mesh =area set (pick all)
Mesh shape= tetrahedral
Mesh type =free mesh
Thermal analysis
Thermal conductivity(KX)=40 W/mK
Element type=solid
brick 8node 45 (solid45)
Mesh =area set (pick all)
Mesh shape= tetrahedral
Mesh type =free mesh
Temp at top area=600
Temp at bottom area =500

PRINT SCREEN DRAWINGS

(PRO-E AND ANSYS)

PISTON SOLID PART GENERATED IN PRO-E

PISTON IMPORTED TO ANSYS WORKBENCH

PISTON AFTER MESHING

PISTON AFTER LOADING AND APPLIED BOUNDARY CONDITIONS (STRUCTURAL

ANALYSIS)

DEFORMED PISTON AFTER STRUCTURAL LOADING

PISTON DOF AND DISPLACEMENT VECTOR SUM

VON MISES STRESS

PISTON AFTER THERMAL LOADING (THERMAL ANALYSIS)

PISTON-THERMAL GRADIENT VECTOR SUM

PISTON-THERMAL NODAL TEMPERATURES

MODULE DESCRIPTION
It is a well known fact that 60% of the total engine mechanical power lost is generated by piston ring
assembly. The piston skirt surface slides on the cylinder bore. A lubricant film fills the clearance between the
surfaces. The small values of the clearance increase the frictional losses and the high values increase the
secondary motion of the piston.
This Internal Combustion (IC) engine piston is made of an aluminum alloy which has a thermal expansion
coefficient, 80% higher than the cylinder bore material made of cast iron.
This leads to some differences between running and the design clearances. Therefore, analysis of the piston
thermal behavior is extremely crucial in designing more efficient engine.
Here the piston performance was evaluated for different classes of Aluminium alloys such as MAHLE series out
of which MAHLE 142 material model is best suited for the range of operating conditions for the piston under
consideration.
The load was varied from 50% to 225% of the mean calculated load with a target value of the induced stress being
equal to the compressive yield strength of the material. The MAHLE 142 is safe for up to a peak operating load of
200% the mean load (or about 6 MPa) acting on the piston head.

CONCLUSION

The results of this analysis show that reverse engineering can be used in conjunction with finite

element analysis to model obsolete product geometries and material models to redesign and generate
new models to suit existing cylinders and other assemblies.

It is also seen that the DesignXplorer within the ANSYS Workbench environment can be used

very effectively to realize any parametric optimization.