MAE 456

David Walton
Thomas Price
9-17-2007
Assignment #2
Introduction

The piston project requires the construction of one quarter of a working piston.
Only a section of the piston is analyzed so that Ansys is not overwhelmed. The first step
in creating the piston section is to first reproduce the figure in Ansys. After the figure is
created the material properties are selected and defined. Steel is used for this project.
After defining the loads, pressures, and temperatures the piston can then be analyzed for
thermal expansion, heat transfer, and structural displacement.

Piston Heat Transfer

The following image shows the heat distribution across the piston. In order to
solve for this distribution the given temperature data had to be applied to the figure. An
outline of the given heat distribution is shown in the following figure.

Figure 1: Heat transfer across piston

Given Temperature Distribution
This figure shows the given variation in heat distribution between the upper and
lower section of the piston. The ambient temperature is given as 100°F. Some other
values needed to calculate the heat transfer and thermal expansion are: steel density, and
the heat transfer film coefficient .

Figure 2: Given heat data

Thermal Expansion
Figure 3 shows the thermal expansion of the piston due to the temperatures
previously mentioned. This figure is nearly identical to the first figure because both
figures show basically the same thing. The first figure shows the change in the
temperature, and this figure shows the change in displacement due to the temperature.

Figure 3: Thermal expansion displacement

k = 25 W/m2K (conductivity)
ρ = 7800 kg/m3 (density)
α = 6.5x10-6/K (thermal expansion coefficient)

Heat Transfer Equation [c]x{T•} + [k]x{T} = {Q}

(transient) (steady state)

Results
The results of this analysis show how heat is transferred across a body of varying
temperatures. The first and third figures show how the piston expands and how the heat
moves across the body of the piston. The results are as expected, the thermal properties
of the steel piston allow it to deform only slightly due to the temperature variation of the
piston. The piston behaved as expected and conveyed the appropriate reactions