Heat Transfer Analysis in Internal Combustion Engine Piston Using Comsol Multiphysics: A Case Study of Tri-Cycle

Abstract

The transient nature of heat flowing involving more than single variable, complicated method of measuring temperature across the length of the liner and ambiguous boundary conditions pose serious problems for the analysis of heat transfer rate on the piston of an internal combustion engine using FEM (Finite Element Method). This present study analyzed the heat transfer rate on the piston of a Tri-cycle engine. The studied piston was selected based on its applications in automobile and other engineering applications. The analysis was basically on the transient state forced-convection and conduction heat transfer. As initial condition, the temperature distributions were considered along the piston at a range of 523K – 673K. The parameter used for the simulation were liquid (Gasoline), Gases (Air) and Aluminium silicon UNSA96061 (Piston). The modeling and simulation were performed by using COMSOL-Multiphysics 4.3a software. The mesh optimization was undertaken by using FEM techniques to predict the maximum and mimimum temperature on the piston at every stages of simulation with time dependent. It was discovered that the temperature along the piston of the try-cycle varies with respect to time. The transient analysis revealed that the temperature of the piston at the TDC (Top Dead Center) in the first power stroke is higher compare to the subsequent power strokes, which is an indication that more heat is transfer at subsequent power strokes. Probable recommendations were later made.