Practical Engine Knowledge

Seminars

Kevin L. Hoag
22 June through 27 July 2005

University of Wisconsin --Engine

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Piston Design

University of Wisconsin --Engine

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 Piston Development

The piston is a piece of metal

absolutely necessary to operate an
engine, but also well suited to prevent
engineers from becoming conceited.
Dr. Ernst Mahle

University of Wisconsin --Engine

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University of Wisconsin --Engine
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 Functions of the Piston

• Transfer combustion chamber

pressure forces through the piston
pin to the connecting rod and
crankshaft
• Seal the combustion chamber from
the crankcase

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 Piston Requirements

• High durability
• Low friction
• Low noise
• Low oil consumption and blowby
• Low cost

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 Piston Operating Environment

• Cyclical pressures and inertia forces

• High, and rapidly changing
temperatures
• Often inadequate lubrication

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 Piston Types

Monoblock Aluminum Articulated

Ductile Iron
Composite

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 Material Alloys
• Aluminum
– Hypereutectic aluminum / silicon alloys
– Further elements include copper (1-6 percent), magnesium
(0.5-1.5 percent), and nickel (0.5-3 percent)
• Fiber reinforced aluminum
– Alumina (Al2O3) fibers
– 10 to 15 percent by volume
• Iron
– Cast ductile iron
– Forged steel alloys
• Magnesium in the future?
– Development of fiber reinforced magnesium for significant
weight reduction

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 Single Piece Aluminum

From www.mahle.com From www.kolbenschmidt.de

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 Casting and Forging
• Casting
– Expandable steel molds
– Dry salt cores for cooling gallery
• Squeeze casting
• Forging
– Advantages
• Increased strength and ductility
• Reduced weight
• As-forged crown
– Disadvantages
• Increased cost
• Some geometry compromises
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 Piston Coatings
• Tin or phosphate
– Thin coating of entire piston
– Improved scuff resistance
• Graphite
– Relatively thick piston skirt coating
– Wear resistance; reduced clearance
• Iron
– Relatively thick piston skirt coating
– Scuff resistance with aluminum cylinders
• Anodizing
– Aluminum oxide ring groove
– Zinc piston crown
University of Wisconsin --Engine
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 Piston Temperature Control

Oil Mist Spray Cooling Gallery Cooling

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 Skirt Design Overview
Management of side forces Design variations

Major Thrust Minor Thrust Skirt cut-outs to

side side clear crankshaft
counterweights
with short
Instantaneous direction of connecting rod
force transfer based on
connecting rod position
Sum or difference of
pressure and inertia
forces

Resulting side force and its Piston pin may be

reaction force on cylinder offset to reduce
wall side forces

Clearance Optimization
Minimize noise Minimize friction Guard against Scuffing Wiping
Seizure

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Skirt Profile and Clearance

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Piston to Wall Clearance

Thrust plane
Pin plane

Ovality

0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2

Cold diametrical clearance, mm

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Piston Secondary Motion

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Skirt Loading

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Pin Boss Stress
Pin deflection results in:

Stresses concentrated at inner

surface of pin boss

High tensile
stress along
sides of pin
boss

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 Pin Boss Design Features
Add cut-outs to
reduce stresses
around sides of
pin bore
Ovalize pin
bore to reduce
tensile stress
at sides
Tapered pin bore
to even out
stress
distribution

Pin Bore Unit Loading

PBUL = peak gas force / pin bore contact area
Max PBUL:
Cast and machined round bore ~35 Mpa Cold formed bore ~ 50 Mpa
Adding side reliefs ~60 Mpa Tapering and Ovalizing ~75 MPa

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 Piston Pin Design
Pin may be hollow to reduce weight
• Basic Design Goals Drilling may be tapered
– High stiffness
– Light weight
• Design Trade-off Outside diameter may be tapered

– pin flexing reduces piston rim stress

– pin stiffness reduces pin boss stress
• Pressed versus floating pin
– Pressed design allows longer pin and
eliminates rod bushing and snap rings
– Floating pin reduces pin wear and friction

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 Piston Development for Durability

• Dimensional Analysis
– Historical experience
– Normalized parameters
• Modeling
– 3-D finite element analysis
– dependent on
• material property knowledge
• thermal and structural boundary conditions
– Increasingly effective in
• design direction-setting prior to prototyping
• optimization in conjunction with prototype testing

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Piston Load Cycles

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 Piston Development for Durability

• Rig Testing
– Pulsator piston tests
• cyclic oil pressure on crown
• lower oil pressure on undercrown
• can vary pressure on both sides to include cylinder
pressure and inertia effects
– Skirt testing with hydraulic actuators
• electrical heaters to simulate operating temperature
– Various thermal shock tests
• Engine Testing
– Temperature and stress measurement
– Thermal cycle testing

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 Example Piston Analysis

• 354 brick
• 75 wedge

Used by permission of
Professor Ali Veshagh,
University of Warwick

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Principal Stresses at M.T.

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von Mises Stress at M.T.

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Temperature at M.T.

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Temperature Distribution at M.T.

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Piston Distortion (Thermal + Mechanical)

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 Ring Pack Design

• Compression Rings
– Materials
• Steel or ductile iron
• High hardness coating on face
– Two compression rings -- most common
configuration
• Top ring barrel faced
• Second ring wedge shaped -- aids in scraping
oil down

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 Ring Face Coatings
(Purposes are wear and scuff resistance)

• Chromium plating
• Molybdenum alloy spray coating
• Ceramic spray coating
• Chromium nitride vapor deposition
• Gas nitriding

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 Ring Width

• Narrow rings
– Reduced friction (gas loading reduced)
– Increased conformability
– Reduced inertia
• Wider rings
– Increased heat transfer
– Increased rigidity at high cylinder pressure
– Reduced wear

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Effects of Ring Profile on Oil Film Thickness

TDC
Trade-off between squeeze film
and hydrodynamic film
Increasing
development
radius of
barrel profile ~ Sharper radius allows
hydrodynamic film to build up
more easily
~ Sharper radius reduces ring
ho/R contact area, and results in
higher squeeze film pressure

BDC

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 Ring End Gaps
• Required for assembly
• Resulting orifice contributes to blowby
– Steps sometimes taken to reduce effects

• Also controls rates of inter-ring pressure change

– In some cases may choose to increase end gap

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 Ring Pack Design (continued)

• Oil Rings
– Twin scrapers
– Flexible carrier
– Expander to control outward force
• increasing force reduces oil consumption
• decreasing force reduces friction

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 Starved Lubrication

Flooded Closed Cavitation Open Cavitation

Aggravated by cylinder distortion

Reduced with ring compliance

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 Cylinder Design Options

• Parent Bore
• Surface Treatment
• Cast-in insert
• Deck design
• Cylinder Liner
– Wet
– Dry
– Stop location

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 Materials and Coatings

• Gray iron
– Parent bore
– Alloyed cast iron liner
• Aluminum
– Cast-in gray iron
– Hypereutectic aluminum
• Entire block
• Locally at cylinder walls (Mercedes Silitec®)
• Porous silicon pre-form (KS Lokasil®)
– Coatings
• Nikasil®

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Surface Finish and Honing

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 Cylinder Walls or Liners
• Cross-hatch honing
– Objective is smooth running surface, with grooves for oil retention
– Cross Hatch Angle typically 15 to 35 degrees
– Visual Assessment
• Uniform cut in both directions
• Clean, not sharp
• Free of folded or torn metal
– Further Specifications
• Roughness average
• Mean peak to valley height
• High spot count (number over a sample length)
• Waviness

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 Cylinder Bore Finish
Profile Bearing Ratio
75-85% 98-100%
<10%

<1.5 A

1.5-3.0
B

Depth

3.0-8.0

Region 2 Region 3
Region 1 defines the long- determines oil
worn away term running retention
during engine surface capability
run-in

University of Wisconsin --Engine

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 Honing Processes

• Conventional
– Typically two operations
– Diamond or ceramic tools
• Plateau
– Three operations
• Brush Honing
– Conventional two-step honing followed by
brushing operation

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 Honing Processes

Conventional Honing Plateau Honing

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 New Processes
• Slide honing
• Fluid honing
Audi laser honing
• Laser honing process reported in AEI,
December 2004

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 Cylinder or Liner Distortion
Polar

4 lobe 3 lobe Elliptical

Longitudinal

–Variables impacting liner distortion

•machining tolerances
•clamping loads and liner constraints
•thermal loads

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 Modeled Effects of Cylinder Distortion

Ma, M-T, et.al., “A Three-Dimensional Analysis of Piston Ring Lubrication,” IMechE, 1994.

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 Ring Rotation

• Do the rings rotate?

– Recent studies have indicated that rings rotate continuously at
high speeds and light loads, but tend to stop rotating as speed is
reduced and/or load increased
• Top and second rings rotate independently
• High distortion tends to cause rings to stop rotating, often with
end gaps alligned

• What are the effects on blowby and oil consumption?

– Increased during periods of continuous rotation
– Significantly increased under high distortion, zero-rotation
conditions

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 Balance of Forces for Ring Operation

• Friction Force between rings and liner

– hydrodynamic over majority of stroke
– mixed film near BDC and TDC
• Inertia forces
– ring mass
– Acceleration and deceleration
• Pressure
– balance of pressures above and below each ring
– changes controlled by
• cylinder pressure changes
• Blow-by rates
– end gaps
– changing ring position in grooves

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 Idealized Ring Operation -- Intake Process

Early in the process friction forces

dominate, and the rings ride at the tops
of their grooves

As the piston slows down near

BDC, the friction forces drop,
and inertia forces send both
rings to the bottom of their
grooves

Oil ring and lower compression ring scrape oil back

to the crankcase

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Idealized Ring Operation -- Compression Process

Early in the compression process the

friction forces again dominate, now holding
the rings at the base of the grooves.

As the piston approaches TDC the

cylinder pressure is high enough to
keep the top ring seated at the base
of its groove.
Inter-ring pressure is lower, and the
inertia force sends the second ring
to the top of its groove.

University of Wisconsin --Engine

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Idealized Ring Operation -- Combustion Process

As the piston begins moving downward

cylinder pressure is sufficient to keep the
top ring seated at the base of the groove.
Friction force keeps the second ring at the
top of its groove.

The inter-ring pressure continues to build,

becoming sufficient to force the second
ring down as the expansion stroke
continues.
Late in the expansion stroke, the
combination of pressure and inertia forces
ensures that the rings remain seated at the
base of their grooves.

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Idealized Ring Operation -- Exhaust Process

As the piston begins moving up in the

exhaust process friction forces keep the
rings seated on the bases of their
grooves.

Late in the exhaust process the reduced

piston velocity results in inertia forces
overcoming friction, and sending both
rings to the tops of their grooves.

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 Ring Flutter
• Top Ring
– As pressure builds, and forces piston against base of groove, lower
rear corner may lift
– Cylinder pressure acting underneath ring, along with friction force,
sends ring to top of groove.
– Pressure continues to act on top of ring sending it back down.
– Unstable forces cause ring to rapidly “flutter” in groove
• Pumps oil
• Increases ring and groove wear
– Positive twist sometimes used to ensure lower rear edge of ring
remains seated.
• Notch on top surface
• Ring preferentially twists upward

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 Ring Flutter (continued)
• Second Ring
– As the piston approaches TDC on the compression stroke,
inertia forces predominate on the second ring, sending it to
the top of its groove.
– Inter-ring pressure is simultaneously building between the top
and second rings.
– As the second ring moves upward the inter-ring volume is
reduced, thus further increasing pressure.
– The rise in pressure may be sufficient to send the ring back
down, causing the volume to increase and the pressure to
drop, thus repeating the cycle.

– Negative or Positive twist

• Negative twist aids in sending the ring to the top of the groove
• Positive twist aids in keeping the ring at the base of the groove
during the expansion process

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 Ring Pack Operation Summary

• Preceding slides summarized ideal ring pack operation

• Ring pack must operate effectively over wide range of speed and
loads
– Inertia forces change greatly with speed
– Pressure forces change greatly with load, and moderately with speed
– Friction forces change greatly with speed and moderately with load

• Optimized operation cannot be maintained over entire engine map

– Duty cycle considerations define speeds and loads where
optimization must focus

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 Measurement Techniques

• Surface profiles
– Initial surface characterization
– Distortion due to assembly loads
• Wear
– Before and after surface profiles
– Radioactive tracers
• Ring movement
– Instantaneous axial position
– Ring rotation
• Oil film thickness at specific positions
• Inter-ring pressures versus crank angle
• Blow-by
• Oil consumption

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 Ring Pack Computational Analysis

• Dynamic analysis of ring pack requires

– Characterization of detailed geometry and distortion
– Component temperature profiles and oil film temperature
• Heat transfer model
• Oil response to temperature change
– Hydrodynamic and mixed film lubrication modeling
– Oil surface tension and adhesion
– Gas transfer path description
• End gaps
• Open cavitation
• Ring position shifts
• Models remain highly empirical
– When carefully calibrated they can provide a useful tool in identifying
trends, and setting direction for design optimization

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