Chapter-

Simulation and Analysis

1. Introduction

This chapter describe the computer simulation developed for a diesel engine piston coated
with a 150 m, 250 m, 350 m and 450 m partially stabilized zirconium (PSZ) over the
Al2O3 bond coat on the substrate. The model is then used to simulate the temperature
distribution through the coated piston and compare the results with the uncoated piston.

As discussed earlier, ceramic coatings provides good thermal barrier properties for designers.
In the design of adiabatic engines, reducing in-cylinder heat rejection requires very special
thermal barrier coatings on the engine combustion chamber. It is important to calculate the
piston temperature distribution in order to control the thermal stresses and deformations
within acceptable levels. The temperature distribution enables the designer to optimize the
thermal aspects of the piston design at lower cost, before the prototype is constructed. Most
of the internal combustion engine pistons are made of aluminium 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 design clearances. Therefore analysis of the
piston thermal behaviour is extremely crucial in designing more efficient engines. The
thermal analysis of piston is important from different point of views. First, the highest
temperature of any point on piston should not exceed 66% of the melting point temperature
of the alloy. This limiting temperature for the current engine piston alloy is about 3700C. The
application of ceramic coating reduces the piston crown temperature and increase the in-
cylinder heat, which increases the thermal efficiency of the engine.

Ceramic have a higher thermal durability than metals, therefore it is usually not necessary to
cool them as fast as metals. Low thermal conductivity ceramics can be used to control
temperature distribution and heat in a structure. Thermal barrier coatings provide the
potential for higher thermal efficiencies of the engine, improved combustion and reduced
emissions. In addition, ceramics show better wear characteristics than convention materials.
Lower heat rejection from the combustion chamber through thermally insulated components
causes an increased in available energy that would increase the in-cylinder work and the
amount of energy carried by the exhaust gases, which could be also utilized. This chapter
present 3-D simulation of an AlSi alloy piston and ceramic coating on the piston crown and
then compared the effect between uncoated and coated piston.

2. Methodology

Various steps involve in the simulation of coated and uncoated piston is shown in the form of
a flowchart in figure 1.
 Flow chart of simulation process

Simulation Procedure

Measurement of actual piston dimensions

Design of actual piston on Solid Works software

Performing steady state thermal analysis In ANSYS

software

Entering the engineering data (Material properties,

temp. etc.)

Import piston geometry from solid works to ANSYS

software

Assignment of material to individual piston parts

Generating the mesh using finite element method

Specifying the boundary conditions

Find out temperature distribution using ANSYS

solution

Entering the different coating thicknesses to find out

individual result by repeating the above procedure

Figure1. Flowchart of simulation process.

 2.1. Measurement of actual piston dimensions:
A Federal-Mogul (Nuremberg, Germany) made diesel engine piston used in TATA Indica
diesel car was purchased from the local market. The dimensions of the piston were calibrated
by Vernier Calliper. The dimensions are given in table 1.

Table1. Piston dimensions

Parameter Piston [mm] Compression ring Oil ring [mm]

[mm]
Diameter 74.2 Di = 66.2 Di = 65.2
Do = 74.2 Do =74.2
Total length 67.6 ___ ___

No. of rings 3 2 1

Width 5 2 3

Thickness ___ 1.87 2.25

2.2.Design of actual piston on SolidWorks software:

Three main parts of the model, like piston, bond coat (Al2O3) and TBC(Y-PSZ) were
designed in SolidWorks software individually by giving the dimensions taken from the
measurement table 1. Then all the three parts were assembled and made the model ready for
analysis in ANSYS 14.0.

Figure2. Piston model developed at SolidWorks.

2.3.Application of ANSYS 14.0 to solve the model:

First of all, the steady state condition was applied by selecting the Steady-State Thermal
analysis using Mechanical APDL solver to condition the process in steady in the above
mentioned software. Then engineering data has been entered which include all the material
properties like Thermal expansion coefficient, density, Poissons ratio, Specific heat etc,
given in table2.

Table2. Material and Properties

MATERIAL Thermal Thermal Density Specific Young's Poisson's

conductivity expansion [kg/m3] heat modulus ratio
[W/m C] 10-6[1/C] [J/kg C] [G Pa]
PROPERTIES

AlSi 155 .21 2700 960 90 .3

AlO 30 7.4 3960 850 370 .22

Y-PSZ 1.5 7.2 6037 500 53 .25

After entering the engineering data the geometry was imported from SolidWorks software.
After importing the geometry the material of individual part of the piston was assigned. Then
mesh was generated by finite element method inbuilt in the ANSYS 14.0. On the basis of
assumptions suitable boundary conditions were given as an input parameter.

Figure3. Mesh generated at ANSYS 14.0.

Numerical analysis was performed to evaluate the temperature gradients in compression
ignition engine pistons, made of AlSi alloy with partially stabilised zirconia(PSZ) ceramic
coated crowns. The finite element mesh of the piston model using ANSYS 14.0 software is
shown in figure3. In this thermal analysis, triangular type elements and totally 94019 nodes,
20861 elements are used. In this research, thermal boundary conditions were determined by
examining the similar works in literature. The thermal values in the cylinder were taken to be
average of four cycles [27]. Thermal boundary conditions are shown in figure4 respectively.
Piston thermal boundary conditions consists of combustion side thermal boundary conditions
(A) Upper ring land (B) Lower ring land (C) Skirt thermal boundary condition (D) Underside
thermal boundary condition (E) Inside piston surface (F) Piston pin thermal boundary
condition.

Figure4. Various thermal boundary conditions.

In this way, the inner temperature was estimated to be 6500C with a convection coefficient of
800 W/m2 .0C. The upper ring land temperature of the piston was specified as 300 0C with a
convection coefficient of 230 W/m2 .0C. The lower ring land temperature of the piston is
defined as 110 0C with a convection coefficient of 200 W/m2 .0C. The piston skirt, the piston
inside surface and piston ring temperature are defined as 85 0C with a convection coefficient
of 600 W/m2 .0C [18]

In order to get final temperature distribution over the coated piston and uncoated piston by
using ANSYS 14.0 software the following assumptions are made:

1. Throught the analysis the piston is considered to be in steady state condition.

2. The effect of piston motion during heat transfer is neglected.
3. The rings and skirt are fully engulfed in oil and there is no cavitation.
4. There is no rotation of rings and its twist also neglected.
5. The conductive heat transfer in the oil film is neglected.
6. There is no change of material properties with time and change of temperature.
7. The surrounding temperature is fixed to be 220C throught the process.
8. The source temperature is constant and assumed to be 6500C (Average temperature
of 4-stroke diesel engine).
 9. The source temperature distribution on the substrate is uniform.

3. Results and Discussions

Numerical analysis were performed to evaluate temperature gradients of the conventional and
the thermal barrier coating piston the temperature distribution on conventional and ceramic
coating piston with AlSi alloy are shown in figure5-10 respectively.

Figure5. Temperature distribution on the top surface of uncoated AlSi piston.

Figure5 shows temperature distribution on the top surface of uncoated AlSi piston. It was
shown that the surface temperature of the piston decreases from the centre to the edge of the
piston. The temperature at the centre was found to be 361.640C, it decreased by 14.39% and
reached to 309.610C at the edge of the piston for the case of uncoated piston. It indicates that
the temperature distribution of the piston surface tends to decrease from the centre to the edge
of the piston. In the engine at which the analysis piston was used, the flame front occurred
during the combustion as a result of spraying the diesel centrally with respect to pistons
centre propagating from the centre to the side by losing thermal intensity, and decreases in its
temperature close to the valve of the cylinder can be simply explained by cooling.
Figure6. Temperature distribution of 150m coated Y-PSZ on Al2O3 bond coat over AlSi
piston.

Figure6 shows the temperature distribution on the top surface of 150m coated Y-PSZ on
Al2O3 bond coat over the AlSi piston. In this case the temperature at the centre of the piston
was 366.30C, whereas at the edge of the piston the temperature was 325.050C, it reduced by
11.26%. The result predicted that 150m coated piston give better resistance to heat loss
from the top of the piston and increased the top of the piston temperature by 4.660C at centre
and 15.440C respectively as compared to the uncoated piston.

Figure7. Temperature distribution of 250m coated Y-PSZ on Al2O3 bond coat over AlSi
piston.

The thermal analysis result of 250mY-PSZ coated on Al2O3 bond coat over the AlSi piston
is given in figure7. It can be observed from the thermal analysis that the temperature
distribution of 250m Y-PSZ coated piston also tends to increase at centre of the piston and
edge of the piston as compared to 150m Y-PSZ coated piston. The temperature value of the
250m Y-PSZ coated piston increased by 3.54% and 4.76% at the centre of the piston and
3.32% and 7.91% at the edge of the piston respectively as compared to 150 m coated Y-PSZ
and uncoated piston.
Figure8. Temperature distribution of 350m coated Y-PSZ on Al2O3 bond coat over AlSi
piston.

Figure8 shows the results of thermal analysis of 350m coated Y-PSZ on Al2O3 bond coat
over the AlSi piston. In this case the temperature of the centre of the piston was found to be
386.280C and edge of the piston was 345.90C, which indicates the betterment in increase on
surface temperature of 1.72%, 5.17%, 6.38% at centre of the piston and 2.80%, 6.03%,
10.49% at edge of the piston respectively.

Figure9. Temperature distribution of 450m coated Y-PSZ on Al2O3 bond coat over AlSi
piston.

The result of thermal analysis of 450m Y-PSZ coated on Al2O3 bond coat over the AlSi
piston is given in figure9. The result of thermal analysis indicates that temperature
distribution at the top surface of the piston increases more compared to others coated and
uncoated pistons. The temperatures at the centre of the piston and at the edge of the piston
were read as 392.640C and 355.10C respectively. In comparison with 350m, 250 m, 150
m and uncoated piston the 450 m coated piston exhibited more increase in temperature at
piston top and holds 1.62%, 3.29%, 6.71%, 7.90% increase in temperature at centre of the
piston and 2.59%, 5.32%, 8.46%, 12.81% temperature increase at edge of the piston
respectively.

Figure10.Temperature distribution of coated and uncoated pistons crown against diameter of

piston.
Surface temperature distributions for coated and uncoated pistons are shown in figure10. The
results of thermal analyses indicate that the temperature distribution at the top surface edge of
the coated piston more compared to the uncoated pistons with increase in coating thickness.
Temperature value close to centre of the uncoated AlSi piston was read as 361.640C and
temperature value close to centre of the coated AlSi piston of 150m, 250 m, 350 m, 450
m were read as 366.3, 379.74, 386.28, 392.640C respectively, whereas at the edge were read
as 325.05, 336.22, 345.9, 355.10C. In all the cases the maximum temperature had been
observed at centre of the piston due to spraying of diesel centrally with respect to pistons
centre. Therefore flame propagating from the centre to the side by losing thermal intensity,
and decreases in its temperature close to the valve of the cylinder can be simply explained by
cooling.

Conclusions
The study shows that designing pistons of a CI engine with partially thermal barrier coating
which posses low heat conductance properties have a great potential to improve performance
and to reduce unburned emissions. In all four coated pistons exhibited higher temperature on
piston top with the increase of coating thickness. This high temperature predict the low heat
rejection from the top of the piston and pertain high amount of heat inside the cylinder, which
helps to improve the thermal efficiency and better combustion reason for reduced unburned
emissions. Mesut Durat et all [28] used 150 m NiCrAl bond coat and 350 m Y-PSZ
coating on the top surface of the SI piston in the annulus form at the edge of the piston and
recorded the temperature on the coated area 334.290C as compared to around 3000C on
without coated piston with a change of 34.290C. However, in this present study 450m, 350
m, 250 m and 150 m coated pistons exhibited 31.0, 24.64, 18.1, 4.66 0C more
temperature at the centre of the piston whereas 45.49, 36.29, 26.61, 15.44 0C at the edge of
the piston. This indicates the ceramic coating over the entire surface holds better temperature
and provides good insulation than uncoated or partially coated piston of any kinds.

Ref:

[18] Tsukama K, Shimada M. Thermal stability of Y2O3-partially stabilized zirconia and Y-

TZP/Al2O3 composites. J Mater SciLett 1985;4:85760.
[27] Kapsiz M. An experimental study for reducing piston upper crevices HC emissions in a
spark ignition engine.Sakarya University.Mechanical Engineering Department.Ms. Thesis.
Institute of Sciences and Technology, Turkey; 2004.
[28]MesutDurat, Murat Kapsiz , Ergun Nart , FeritFicici , Adnan Parlak. The effects of
coating material in spark ignition engine design.Materials and Design 36 (2012) 540545