Thermo Mechanical Analysis of a Direct Injection Heavy Duty Diesel Engine Piston Using FEA

Abstract

This paper involves simulation of a 4-stroke direct injection heavy duty diesel engine piston made of aluminum silicon alloy to determine its temperature field, stress distribution and deformation at the conditions of upgrading the engine power from 300 HP to 350 HP. Turbocharger is the way used to enhance the engine power from 300 HP to 350 HP beside improving the fuel injection system. When the engine power is upgraded, high temperature and pressure will be developed because the engine will run at high loads. The piston is subjected to the coupled action of the thermal effect due to the transfer of heat from the head to the body and the mechanical effect represented by the combustion pressure and the inertial load due to the important change of direction of the piston in the cylinder bore. This results in producing stresses in the piston and if these stresses exceed the designed values, the failure of the piston is the result. Finite element analysis (FEA) is considered as one of the best numerical tools to model and analyze the physical systems. The three dimensional piston model was developed in Solid-Works and imported into ANSYS software. Finite element analysis is considered Code for preprocessing, loading and post processing. The simulation parameters used in this paper were combustion pressure, inertial effects and temperature. Diesel RK software is used to simulate the thermal analysis of engine cycle at each case of engine power 300 HP and 350 HP. Also, this model included the effect of the heat flow on the piston to overcome the whole area of the piston is used to illustrate the temperature distribution on the total area of the piston. This area divided into piston surface area and sidle area of piston which included the groves of rings (pressure and oil). The heat transfer coefficient is determined in each area of the piston according to the mechanism of heat transfer. Finally, the results of two different piston conditions are compared with each other. The highest temperature appeared at the combustion chamber side which occurred at the edges of the piston top face in direct contact with the hot gases in the radial. The piston deformation value is within a safe margin and below the gap between the piston and the cylinder bore in case of engine power of 350 HP. The highest calculated value of stresses was below the yield stress of the piston material at elevated temperatures and engine brake power of 350 HP. Hence the piston would withstand the induced stresses during work cycles.