Influence of vibrations on the oil film in concentrated contacts

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Coupled Elastodynamics of Piston Compression Ring Subject to Sweep Excitation

The piston compression ring's primary function is to seal the combustion chamber, thus mitigating gas leakage to the crankcase and avoiding loss of pressure loading. As a result, the ring is meant to conform closely to the cylinder surface which promotes increased friction. The compression ring is subjected to combustion pressure loading, ring tension, varying inertial force and friction. It is a slender ring of low mass, thus undergoes complex elastodynamic behaviour, when subjected to a multitude of forces. These motions occur in the ring's radial in-plane and axial out-of-plane dynamics, which comprise flutter, ring axial jump, compression-extension, ring twist and rotational drag. An implication of these motions can be loss of sealing, gas blow-by, loss of power and lubricant degradation/oil loss, to name but a few. Consequently, understanding and accurately predicting ring dynamic behaviour under transient conditions is an important step in any subsequent modelling for evaluation of cylinder system efficiency. There have been a plethora of investigations for ring dynamics, often decoupling the ring behaviour in its in-plane and out-of-plane motions. This approach disregards any transfer of dynamic energy from one degree of freedom to another which is only applicable to rectangular ring cross-sections. Alternatively, there are computationally intensive approaches such as finite element analysis which are not conducive for inclusion in any subsequent system level engine modelling where ring response alters in an instantaneous manner. This would require embedded finite element analysis within a transient analysis. This paper presents a finite difference numerical analysis for coupled in-plane and out-of-plane motions of compression rings with practical cross-sectional geometries, which are mostly not rectangular. The formulated method can be integrated into a system level transient cyclic analysis of ring-bore contact. The presented approach takes into account the energy transfer between different degrees of freedom. The predictions are validated against precise non-contact measurements of ring elastodynamic behaviour under amplitude-frequency sweeps. This approach has not hitherto been reported in literature and constitutes the main contribution of the paper

Combined Experimental and Flexible Multibody Dynamic Investigation of High Energy Impact Induced Driveline Vibration

Lightly damped non-linear dynamic driveline components are subjected to excitation with rapid application of clutch and/or throttle. Modern thin-walled driveshaft tubes respond with a plethora of structural-acoustic modes under such impulsive conditions, which are onomatopoeically referred to as clonk in the vehicle industry. The underlying mechanisms for the occurrence of this phenomenon are investigated, using combined experimentation and flexible multi-body dynamics under impulsive impact conditions. The coincidence of high-frequency structural modes, coupled with acoustic response is highlighted for the broad-band spectral response of the hollow driveshaft tubes. The cyclic relationship of clonk with the shuffle response of the driveline system is also established for transient decay of the clonk phenomenon. In particular, the multi-body model is used to ascertain the effect of vehicle laden state on the propensity of driveline clonk, an approach not hitherto reported in literature

Contact characteristics of viscoelastic bonded layers

AbstractA viscoelastic layered contact model has successfully been developed and solved analytically. The single layered linear viscoelastic material is assumed to be perfectly bonded to a rigid substrate in contact with a rigid indenter without friction under a step load. Two cases are considered: (a) a compressible layered material with a typical Poisson's ratio of 0.4 and (b) an incompressible layer with a Poisson's ratio of 0.5. Two viscoelastic models: Maxwell and three element standard linear solid are investigated. This paper highlights the methodology employed and the results obtained under various conditions

Multi-body dynamics in full-vehicle handling analysis

This paper presents a multidegrees-of-freedom non-linear multibody dynamic model of a vehicle, comprising front and rear suspensions, steering system, road wheels, tyres and vehicle inertia. The model incorporates all sources of compliance, stiffness and damping, all with non-linear characteristics. The vehicle model is created in ADAMS (automatic dynamic analysis of mechanical systems) formulation. The model is used for the purpose of vehicle handling analysis. Simulation runs, in-line with vehicle manoeuvres specified under ISO and British Standards, have been undertaken and reported in the paper

Effect of teeth micro-geometrical form modification on contact kinematics and efficiency of high performance transmissions

Light weight, compactness and efficiency are key objectives in high performance vehicular transmission systems, which are subject to large variations in torque and power. Pitch line velocities of up to 52 m/s and teeth pair contact pressures of up to 3 GPa are routinely encountered under race conditions. Contact patch asymmetry due to angular misalignments between input and output shafts leads to the generation of high edge stress discontinuities on gear flanks, inducing fatigue spalling which affects system durability. Crowning is widely used as a palliative measure to mitigate these undesired effects. These problems can be further exacerbated by contact footprint truncation. The paper presents a new approach to modelling the kinematics and contact micro-geometry of meshing conjunctions of involute spur gears with profile and lead modifications. A time-efficient analytical method is presented to accurately determine the contact footprint and kinematics, leading to the solution of highly loaded non-Newtonian mixed thermo-elastohydrodynamic contact under the extreme prevalent conditions of high performance vehicular transmissions. The effect of tooth form modification on contact footprint truncation, contact kinematics and generated frictional power loss is investigated. This approach has not hitherto been reported in literature

Thermohydrodynamics of bidirectional groove dry gas seals with slip flow

Thermo-hydrodynamic behaviour of bidirectional dry gas seals with trapezoidal shaped symmetric grooves is studied. A multi-physics model, coupling compressible laminar flow and heat transfer in both the fluid and the solid bodies is used in a multi-physics modelling environment. The multi-physics model also includes slip flow conditions, corresponding to relatively high Knudsen numbers, as well as the effect of asperity interactions on the opposing seal faces. A comparison of the seal performance under isothermal and thermal flow conditions shows the importance of including the thermal effects. The difference in the predicted opening force between isothermal and thermal model can exceed 2.5%, which is equivalent to a force of around 1 kN. The importance of designing gas seals to operate at the minimum possible gap to reduce power losses as well as leakage from the contact is highlighted. However, it is shown that there exists a critical minimum gap, below which the power loss in the contact can abruptly increase due to asperity interactions, generating significantly increased operating temperatures

Optimisation of piston compression ring for improved energy efficiency of high performance race engines

The primary function of the piston compression ring is to seal the combustion chamber from the bottom end of the engine. As a result, its conformance to the cylinder liner surface is of prime importance. This close-contact contiguity results in increased friction, making this contact conjunction responsible for a significant proportion of energy losses. The frictional losses can be as much as 2–6% of the expended fuel energy, which is quite significant for such a diminutive contact. Under these conditions, the geometrical profile, the surface topography and the inertial properties of the ring assume significant importance. The paper presents an integrated mixed-hydrodynamic analysis of the compression ring–cylinder liner contact with multi-parameter optimisation, based on the use of a genetic algorithm. The multi-objective functionality includes minimisation of the parasitic energy loss, reduction in the incidence of asperity level interactions as well as minimisation of the ring mass. Both cold running engine conditions and hot running engine conditions in line with the New European Drive Cycle were considered. Hitherto, such an approach has not been reported in the literature