Modelling and Analysis of Piston pin of

Diesel Engine

ME-466 – Finite Element Methods (FEM)

Submitted to: Dr. Sohail Malik

Submitted by:
Shamsher Lala
2016458
 i

Abstract
Operating conditions for internal combustion engine have become severe over the years as
there is more and more demand for high power and speeds. Engine components that are
continuously in motion under extreme temperature and pressure experience large amounts
of stresses which may result in fatigue failure. In this study, a piston pin of diesel engine in
modelled using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) to simulate and analyze the stresses that are
produced due to applied loads and pressures. Meshing is optimized with sensitivity analysis
by using different types of mesh types and sizes. The results show that maximum value of
stress and deformation is at the edge of piston pin.

Keywords: FEM; Piston Pin; Gudgeon Pin; Stress concentration; MSC Apex
 ii

Nomenclature

σ – Stress

ε – Strain

d – Displacement

u – Displacement field

B – Strain-displacement

K – Element Stiffness Matrix

N – Shape function

FEM – Finite Element Method

FEA – Finite Element Analysis

PDE – Partial Differential Equation

 iii

Table of Contents
Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... i
Nomenclature ......................................................................................................................................... ii
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 1
Literature Review ................................................................................................................................... 2
Methods and Material ........................................................................................................................... 3
Geometry ............................................................................................................................................ 3
Mesh ................................................................................................................................................... 4
Sensitivity Analysis .......................................................................................................................... 4
Boundary Conditions .......................................................................................................................... 5
Material .............................................................................................................................................. 5
Governing Equations .......................................................................................................................... 6
Results and Discussion ........................................................................................................................... 7
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 7
Acknowledgement ................................................................................................................................. 8
References .............................................................................................................................................. 9
 1

Introduction
Over the years, there has been a lot of enhancements in car engines in terms of its power
output and durability. However, there is still a lot room for improvements. A failure of a
component may result in a disaster if the car is moving at high speed [1]. In internal
combustion engine the piston, crankshaft, and connecting rod play a major role as they are
continuously in motion under extreme conditions like very high temperature and pressure
[2]. This results in highly localized stresses being produced at critical locations that may cause
failure due to fatigue.
Piston pin, also known as gudgeon pin, connects piston head and connecting rod, while
allowing to move independent to each other [3]. There is a thin sleeve, also known as bushing,
of copper between piston pin and connecting rod to reduce the frictional effects being
produced on piston pin. Usually, the material used for piston pin is stainless steel, but for high
performance engines, like racecars, it is made of titanium due its lightweight [4].

Figure 1: Piston components [22]

Piston pin, shown in figure 1, is one of the components that operates under extreme
temperature and pressure and experiences highly localized stresses [5]. It is very difficult to
calculate these stresses as the pin is always in motion. However, with increasing
computational powers, the Finite Element Analysis (FEA) can be used to generate virtual
results when provided with complete information of boundary conditions and load
application points.
FEA is a simulation which is based on numerical technique such as Finite Element Method
(FEM). Different physical phenomena like fluid flow, stress propagations, deformations are
mathematically quantified using Partial Differential Equations (PDEs) [6]. These equations not
only describe the nature of a particular phenomenon, but also its physical significance in
application. The PDEs are complex and need to be solved to estimate the behavior of the
quantities like stress, strain, deformation etc. with the help of FEA, these complex equations
can be solved to estimate the results for a given problem [7].
FEA discretizes the differential equations into simplified algebraic equations by generating
mesh, which consist of small elements connected by nodes, on the geometry [8]. The number
elements that make up the mesh depends on the size of the mesh. Larger the mesh size,
smaller will be the number of elements. The estimation of the results also depend strongly on
mesh size. Smaller the mesh size, better the accuracy in results may be achieved.
 2

Nowadays, the use of FEA is becoming more and more important in the field of engineering
as it can readily provide the solutions to the problems that are very difficult to perform
experimentally. Testing an object experimentally may be time consuming, or in some cases
impractical due to costs involved. The FEA analysis is a good alternative as one can easily
perform and simulate a test on it in no time without any extra costs. It is widely used in almost
every engineering field, especially in automotive, aerospace and civil engineering. FEA is very
handy tool and one can easily simulate and study at which locations value of stress will
maximum, or strain will be maximum, or point at which yielding will occur.

Literature Review
Piston pin is one of the crucial component in engine as it is always reciprocating in extreme
temperature and pressure. Hence significant forces are acting on it at critical locations which
result in failure of the piston pin. A lot of research has been done on piston pin with respect
to its material and shape to counter the failure problems.
Tamboli et al. [9] did an analysis on gudgeon pin for its wear, fatigue and frictional stresses
for different materials. Their study showed that Aluminum was better choice for piston pin
design when it comes to strength. Wang et al. [10] conducted a research for the optimization
of the piston pin. They concluded that a noncircular hole for piston pin reduces the stress
concentration, hence enabling the piston pin to withstand greater loads. Nimbarte et al. [11]
analyzed the stress distribution on actual engine with boundary conditions which include
pressure variation on piston head during operation, and uneven temperature distribution
from piston head to skirt. Nguyen et al. [12] modelled an operation of internal combustion
engine to analyze the forces that develop on piston, crankshaft, and connecting rod when the
piston is in power stroke. They concluded that net forces varies according to crank angle and
reach a maximum value at top dead centre. Zhang et al. [5] did an analysis on the
characteristics of friction and lubrication on piston pin. They discussed the effects of different
lubrication mediums, piston pins and thermal deformations. The results showed that the
minimum oil film thickness was very different and the maximum oil film pressure was nearly
the same. Also, the parabola profile of piston pin will reduce the wear.
Fridman et al. [13] researched for a heavy duty diesel engine piston pin joint. They explored
the effect of connecting rod small end bushing geometry and pin bore geometry on the
asperity contact pressure and heat generated in a heavy duty piston pin joint. Ding et al. [14]
studied a diesel engine piston-pin used in a truck which was smashed in four when servicing.
The longitudinal and transverse cracking happened on the failed piston-pin. The cracks
initiated from internal surface and propagated toward the external circle. The occurrence of
beach marks or fatigue striations on the fracture surfaces of all crack origin regions indicates
that fatigue fracture is the dominant failure mechanism of the piston-pin. Suhara et al. [15]
dealt experimentally with friction and lubrication characteristics of the small end connecting
rod bearing and the piston pin boss bearing, respectively. They developed a device to measure
the friction force in these bearings.
Keeping in view the aforementioned literature, in this study piston pin of a diesel engine is
modelled and analyzed to check the critical locations for stresses and failure. The software
used is MSC Apex as it provides a user-friendly graphical user interface.
 3

Methods and Material

In this study, a piston pin is modelled and analyzed using MSC Apex software. The mesh size
is varied between 2mm and 45mm to check the effect of mesh size on final results. Material
used for piston pin is stainless steel; piston head and connecting rod is assigned Aluminum
and sleeve between piston pin and connecting rod is assigned brass.

Geometry
Piston pin is designed with dimensions given in table 1. The geometry is constructed on MSC
Apex with given dimensions. Figure 2 shows the geometry.

Item Size (mm)

Piston Pin length 140
Piston pin outer diameter 40
Piston pin inner diameter 30
Table 1: Geometry of Piston Pin

Piston Head

Piston Pin

Connecting Rod

Figure 2: Geometry of Piston Pin

 4

Mesh
It is important to select apply the appropriate mesh on the object to obtain reasonable and
comparable results. MSC Apex has two types of mesh available: 1) tetrahedral, and 2)
hexahedral. Both types can be used with either linear or quadratic elements.

Sensitivity Analysis
With different mesh sizes, different results were obtained. Therefore to eliminate this
problem and to obtain consistent solutions, sensitivity analysis was done on each type of
mesh with various mesh size to select the best suitable mesh type for piston pin analysis.
Figure 3 below shows the results obtained from different mesh types.

Figure 3: Mesh size vs. Maximum stress

In this study, quadratic tetrahedral mesh type is used as it gave the best results among all
types. The mesh size was kept 5mm which it created 9792 elements. Figure 4 below shows
the meshed geometry of piston pin.

Figure 4: Meshed geometry

 5

Boundary Conditions
Maximum load acting on piston assembly is 6000N [16]. The maximum value pressure in
piston cylinder is 20MPa and it is during the power stroke of internal combustion engine [17].
The ends of piston pin are constrained as fixed for analysis purposes. Figure 5 shows the
piston pin with applied loads and boundary conditions necessary for simulation.

Pressure

Fixed end

Fixed end

Force

Figure 5: Geometry with Boundary conditions

Material
The material plays an important role in analysis as well as in real simulations and greatly
influences the results. The proper assignment of material to respective components is
necessary. Table 2 describes the materials and its properties considered for the components
used in this analysis [18] [19].

Component Material Elastic Modulus (GPa) Poisson’s ratio

Piston Pin Stainless steel 200 0.29
Piston Head Aluminum 69 0.33
Bushing Copper 124 0.34
Connecting Rod Aluminum 69 0.33
Table 2: Materials of components
 6

Governing Equations
The FEA analysis on software is done with the help of some equations that run at backend to
solve and give results of the simulations. The total potential energy of the object is given by
[20] [21]:

1 . . .
Π= ∫𝑉
𝜎 𝑇 𝜀 𝑑𝑉 − ∫𝑉 𝑢𝑇 𝑋 𝑑𝑉 − ∫𝑆 𝑢𝑇 𝑇𝑆 𝑑𝑆 (1)
2 𝑇

Where displacement 𝑢, stress 𝜎, and strain 𝜀 are given by:

𝑢 = 𝑁 𝑑 - (a) 𝜀 = 𝐵 𝑑 - (b) 𝜎 = 𝐷 𝐵 𝑑 - (c)

Substituting these equations in (1), gives:

1 . . .
Π (d) ≈ ∫ (𝐷𝐵 𝑑)𝑇 (𝐵 𝑑) 𝑑𝑉 − ∫𝑉(𝑁 𝑑)𝑇 𝑋 𝑑𝑉 − ∫𝑆 (𝑁 𝑑)𝑇 𝑇𝑆 𝑑𝑆
2 𝑉
(2)
𝑇

The stiffness matrix of element is calculated by:

𝑘 = ∫ 𝐵𝑇 𝐷 𝐵 𝑑𝑉 (3)

The FEA software solves these equations simultaneously for hundreds and thousands of
elements.
 7

Results and Discussion

After applying appropriate boundary conditions, materials, and mesh, the piston pin was
placed in analysis scene and post processing was run to obtain results. The results show that
maximum value of Von-Mises stress is 29.3MPa at the edge of piston pin. This indicates that
it is the critical location. Figure 6 shows the results obtained from MSC Apex.

Figure 6: Stress results

Conclusion
The quasi-static tests performed on piston pin show a profound understanding of stresses is
presented. By applying different mesh sizes on piston pin, the results of mesh are converged
and validated as best suitable option is obtained through sensitivity analysis of mesh size.
 8

Acknowledgement
This study was done for the course ME-466 - Finite Element Method in Fall 2019 semester, at
the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Ghulam Ishaq Khan institute. The study used MSC
Apex software – Iberian Lynx (Student Version) for FEA to model and analyze the piston pin.

I greatly appreciate my course instructor, Prof. Dr. Sohail malik, who helped me throughout
this study. I also thank Ms. Zehra Andaleep who introduced me to this software and was of
great help in this study.

2016458
Shamsher Lala
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
 9

References
[1] H. Fessler and T. Hyde, "Stress distribution in gudgeon pin," The Journal of Strain Analysis for
Engineering Design, vol. 32, no. 5, pp. 375-386, 1997.
[2] WordPress, "What is a four stroke combustion cycle?," 2015. [Online]. Available:
http://importautorepairindy.com/blog/what-is-a-four-stroke-combustioncycle/.. [Accessed 8
12 2019].
[3] V. B. Kamble, P. K. S. Mangrulkar, M. D. Shah and H. B. Kulkarni, "Design and Analysis of
Gudgeon Pin to Minimize Stress Concentration," International Journal of recent trends in
Engineering and research, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 78-84, 2018.
[4] F. Froes, J. Friedrich, J. Kiese and D. Bergoint, "Titanium in the family automobile: the cost
challenge," Jom, vol. 56, no. 2, pp. 40-44, 2004.
[5] L. BA, Z.-p. HE, Y.-h. LIU and G.-c. ZHANG, "Analysis of piston-pin lubrication considering the
effects of structure deformation and cavitation," Journal of Zhejiang University, vol. 16, no. 6,
pp. 443-463, 2015.
[6] J. Fish and T. Belytschko, "1 Introduction," in A First Course in Finite Elements, WILEY, 2007, pp.
1-7.
[7] P. O. d. Weck and D. I. Y. Kim, "Finite Element Method," Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
[8] SimWiki, "What is FEA?," SimScale, 2018. [Online]. Available:
https://www.simscale.com/docs/content/simwiki/fea/whatisfea.html. [Accessed 7 12 2019].
[9] M. S. Tamboli, D. N. K. Nath and D. S. B. Satpal, "Design And Analysis of Gudgeon pin," IOSR
Journal of Mechanical and Civil Engineering (IOSR-JMCE), pp. 38-41, 2018.
[10] Y. Wang and H. Gao, "Research on Optimization for the Piston Pin and the Piston Pin Boss," The
Open Mechanical Engineering Journal, vol. 5, pp. 186-193, 2011.
[11] V. R. Nimbarte and P. S. Khamankar, "STRESS ANALYSIS OF PISTON USING PRESSURE LOAD AND
THERMAL LOAD," IPASJ International Journal of Mechanical Engineering (IIJME), vol. 3, no. 8,
pp. 1-8, 2015.
[12] D. V. Nguyen and V. N. Duy, "Numerical Analysis of the Forces on the Components of a Direct
Diesel Engine," Applied Sciences, vol. 8, pp. 761-773, 2018.
[13] V. Fridman, I. Piraner and K. Clark, "MODELING OF MIXED LUBRICATION CONDITIONS IN A
HEAVY DUTY PISTON PIN JOINT," ASME Internal Combustion Engine Division, pp. 1-8, 2006.
[14] Z. Yu, X. Xu and H. Ding, "Failure analysis of a diesel engine piston-pin," Engineering Failure
Analysis, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 110-117, 2007.
[15] T. Suhara, S. Ato, M. Takiguchi and S. Furuhama, "Friction and Lubrication Characteristics of
Piston Pin Boss Bearings of an Automotive Engine," SAE technical paper Series, 1997.
[16] J. Bøhn, "Piston Pin Testing," Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 2016.
[17] D. M. Heyn, "Pressure in diesel engines," 28 11 2013. [Online]. Available: https://www.bosch-
presse.de/pressportal/de/en/pressure-in-diesel-engines-42396.html. [Accessed 7 12 2019].
[18] L. L. Myagkov, K. Mahkamov, N. D. Chainov and I. Makhkamova, "11 - Advanced and
conventional internal combustion engine materials," in Alternative Fuels and Advanced Vehicle
Technologies for Improved Environmental Performance, Woodhaed Publishing, 2014, pp. 370-
392.
[19] W. Ward, "Piston pins - material choices," 3 7 2012. [Online]. Available:
https://www.highpowermedia.com/Archive/piston-pins-material-choices. [Accessed 8 12
2019].
 10

[20] E. Carrera, M. Cinefra, E. Zappino and M. Petrolo, "Typical FE Governing Equations and
Procedures," in Finite Element Analysis of Structures Through Unified Formulation, 18, Wiley,
2014, p. 7.
[21] D. L. Logan, "7 Practical Considerations in Modeling," in A first course in Finite Element Methods,
Cengage Learning, 2012, pp. 384-4337.
[22] D. L. Heiserman, "Waybuilder," 2015. [Online]. Available:
http://www.waybuilder.net/freeed/Courses/15%20Transportation/AutoTruck03/AutoTruckS
how.asp?iNum=010102. [Accessed 8 12 2019].