Piston

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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For other uses, see Piston (disambiguation).

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Pistons within a sectioned petrol engine

Animation of a piston system.

A piston is a component of reciprocating engines, reciprocating pumps, gas

compressors, hydraulic cylinders and pneumatic cylinders, among other
similar mechanisms. It is the moving component that is contained by
a cylinder and is made gas-tight by piston rings. In an engine, its purpose is
to transfer force from expanding gas in the cylinder to the crankshaft via
a piston rod and/or connecting rod. In a pump, the function is reversed and
force is transferred from the crankshaft to the piston for the purpose of
compressing or ejecting the fluid in the cylinder. In some engines, the piston
also acts as a valve by covering and uncovering ports in the cylinder.

Piston engines

[edit]

Main article: Reciprocating engine

Four-piston engine (3D render)

Piston

Internal combustion engines

[edit]
 Internal combustion engine piston, sectioned to show
the gudgeon pin.

An internal combustion engine is acted upon by the pressure of the

expanding combustion gases in the combustion chamber space at the top of
the cylinder. This force then acts downwards through the connecting rod and
onto the crankshaft. The connecting rod is attached to the piston by a
swivelling gudgeon pin (US: wrist pin). This pin is mounted within the piston:
unlike the steam engine, there is no piston rod or crosshead (except big two
stroke engines).

The typical piston design is on the picture. This type of piston is widely used
in car diesel engines. According to purpose, supercharging level and working
conditions of engines the shape and proportions can be changed.

High-power diesel engines work in difficult conditions. Maximum pressure in

the combustion chamber can reach 20 MPa and the maximum temperature
of some piston surfaces can exceed 450 °C. It is possible to improve piston
cooling by creating a special cooling cavity. Injector supplies this cooling
cavity «A» with oil through oil supply channel «B». For better temperature
reduction construction should be carefully calculated and analysed. Oil flow
in the cooling cavity should be not less than 80% of the oil flow through the
injector.
 A – cooling cavity; B – oil supply channel

The pin itself is of hardened steel and is fixed in the piston, but free to move
in the connecting rod. A few designs use a 'fully floating' design that is loose
in both components. All pins must be prevented from moving sideways and
the ends of the pin digging into the cylinder wall, usually by circlips.

Gas sealing is achieved by the use of piston rings. These are a number of
narrow iron rings, fitted loosely into grooves in the piston, just below the
crown. The rings are split at a point in the rim, allowing them to press against
the cylinder with a light spring pressure. Two types of ring are used: the
upper rings have solid faces and provide gas sealing; lower rings have
narrow edges and a U-shaped profile, to act as oil scrapers. There are many
proprietary and detail design features associated with piston rings.

Pistons are usually cast or forged from aluminium alloys. For better strength
and fatigue life, some racing pistons[1] may be forged instead. Billet pistons
are also used in racing engines because they do not rely on the size and
architecture of available forgings, allowing for last-minute design changes.
Although not commonly visible to the naked eye, pistons themselves are
designed with a certain level of ovality and profile taper, meaning they are
not perfectly round, and their diameter is larger near the bottom of the skirt
than at the crown.[2]

Early pistons were of cast iron, but there were obvious benefits for engine
balancing if a lighter alloy could be used. To produce pistons that could
survive engine combustion temperatures, it was necessary to develop new
alloys such as Y alloy and Hiduminium, specifically for use as pistons.
A few early gas engines[i] had double-acting cylinders, but otherwise
effectively all internal combustion engine pistons are single-acting.
During World War II, the US submarine Pompano[ii] was fitted with a prototype
of the infamously unreliable H.O.R. double-acting two-stroke diesel engine.
Although compact, for use in a cramped submarine, this design of engine
was not repeated.

Media related to Internal combustion engine pistons at Wikimedia

Commons

Trunk pistons

[edit]

Trunk pistons are long relative to their diameter. They act both as a piston
and cylindrical crosshead. As the connecting rod is angled for much of its
rotation, there is also a side force that reacts along the side of the piston
against the cylinder wall. A longer piston helps to support this.

Trunk pistons have been a common design of piston since the early days of
the reciprocating internal combustion engine. They were used for both petrol
and diesel engines, although high speed engines have now adopted the
lighter weight slipper piston.

A characteristic of most trunk pistons, particularly for diesel engines, is that

they have a groove for an oil ring below the gudgeon pin, in addition to the
rings between the gudgeon pin and crown.

The name 'trunk piston' derives from the 'trunk engine', an early design
of marine steam engine. To make these more compact, they avoided the
steam engine's usual piston rod with separate crosshead and were instead
the first engine design to place the gudgeon pin directly within the piston.
Otherwise these trunk engine pistons bore little resemblance to the trunk
piston; they were extremely large diameter and double-acting. Their 'trunk'
was a narrow cylinder mounted in the centre of the piston.

Media related to Trunk pistons at Wikimedia Commons

Crosshead pistons

[edit]

Large slow-speed Diesel engines may require additional support for the side
forces on the piston. These engines typically use crosshead pistons. The
main piston has a large piston rod extending downwards from the piston to
what is effectively a second smaller-diameter piston. The main piston is
responsible for gas sealing and carries the piston rings. The smaller piston is
purely a mechanical guide. It runs within a small cylinder as a trunk guide
and also carries the gudgeon pin.

Lubrication of the crosshead has advantages over the trunk piston as its
lubricating oil is not subject to the heat of combustion: the oil is not
contaminated by combustion soot particles, it does not break down owing to
the heat and a thinner, less viscous oil may be used. The friction of both
piston and crosshead may be only half of that for a trunk piston. [3]

Because of the additional weight of these pistons, they are not used for high-
speed engines.

Media related to Crosshead pistons at Wikimedia Commons

Slipper pistons

[edit]

Slipper piston

A slipper piston is a piston for a petrol engine that has been reduced in size
and weight as much as possible. In the extreme case, they are reduced to
the piston crown, support for the piston rings, and just enough of the piston
skirt remaining to leave two lands so as to stop the piston rocking in the
bore. The sides of the piston skirt around the gudgeon pin are reduced away
from the cylinder wall. The purpose is mostly to reduce the reciprocating
mass, thus making it easier to balance the engine and so permit high
speeds.[4] In racing applications, slipper piston skirts can be configured to
yield extremely light weight while maintaining the rigidity and strength of a
full skirt.[5] Reduced inertia also improves mechanical efficiency of the
engine: the forces required to accelerate and decelerate the reciprocating
parts cause more piston friction with the cylinder wall than the fluid pressure
on the piston head.[6] A secondary benefit may be some reduction in friction
with the cylinder wall, since the area of the skirt, which slides up and down in
the cylinder is reduced by half. However, most friction is due to the piston
rings, which are the parts which actually fit the tightest in the bore and the
bearing surfaces of the wrist pin, and thus the benefit is reduced.

Media related to Slipper pistons at Wikimedia Commons

Deflector pistons

[edit]

Two-stroke deflector piston

Deflector pistons are used in two-stroke engines with crankcase

compression, where the gas flow within the cylinder must be carefully
directed in order to provide efficient scavenging. With cross scavenging, the
transfer (inlet to the cylinder) and exhaust ports are on directly facing sides
of the cylinder wall. To prevent the incoming mixture passing straight across
from one port to the other, the piston has a raised rib on its crown. This is
intended to deflect the incoming mixture upwards, around the combustion
chamber.[7]

Much effort, and many different designs of piston crown, went into
developing improved scavenging. The crowns developed from a simple rib to
a large asymmetric bulge, usually with a steep face on the inlet side and a
gentle curve on the exhaust. Despite this, cross scavenging was never as
effective as hoped. Most engines today use Schnuerle porting instead. This
places a pair of transfer ports in the sides of the cylinder and encourages gas
flow to rotate around a vertical axis, rather than a horizontal axis. [8]

Media related to Deflector pistons at Wikimedia Commons

Racing pistons

[edit]
 Early (c. 1830) piston for a beam engine. The piston
seal is made by turns of wrapped rope.

In racing engines, piston strength and stiffness is typically much higher than
that of a passenger car engine, while the weight is much less, to achieve the
high engine RPM necessary in racing.[9]

Hydraulic cylinders

[edit]

Pistons of Hydraulic cylinders used in a hot press

Hydraulic cylinders can be both single-acting or double-acting. A hydraulic

actuator controls the movement of the piston back and/or forth. Guide rings
guides the piston and rod and absorb the radial forces that act
perpendicularly to the cylinder and prevent contact between sliding the
metal parts.

Steam engines

[edit]
 Cast-iron steam engine piston, with a metal
piston ring spring-loaded against the cylinder wall.

Steam engines are usually double-acting (i.e. steam pressure acts alternately
on each side of the piston) and the admission and release of steam is
controlled by slide valves, piston valves or poppet valves. Consequently,
steam engine pistons are nearly always comparatively thin discs: their
diameter is several times their thickness. (One exception is the trunk
engine piston, shaped more like those in a modern internal-combustion
engine.) Another factor is that since almost all steam engines use crossheads
to translate the force to the drive rod, there are few lateral forces acting to
try and "rock" the piston, so a cylinder-shaped piston skirt isn't necessary.

Pumps

[edit]

Piston pumps can be used to move liquids or compress gases.

For liquids

[edit]

Main article: Reciprocating pump

For gases

[edit]

Main article: Reciprocating compressor

Air cannons

[edit]

There are two special type of pistons used in air cannons: close tolerance
pistons and double pistons. In close tolerance pistons O-rings serve as a
valve, but O-rings are not used in double piston types. [citation needed]
See also

[edit]

 Air gun

 Fire piston

 Fruit press

 Gas-operated reloading, using a gas piston

 Hydraulic cylinder

 List of auto parts

 Piston motion equations

 Shock absorber

 Slide whistle

 Steam locomotive components

 Syringe

 Wankel engine, an internal combustion engine design with a rotor

instead of pistons

Notes

[edit]

1. ^ 'Gas' here refers to a fuel gas, not gasoline.

2. ^ A handful of submarines in the following class used a similar

engine, with almost equally poor results.

References

[edit]

1. ^ Magda, Mike. "What Makes A Racing Piston?". Retrieved 2018-

04-22.

2. ^ Bailey, Kevin. "Full-Round vs. Strutted: Piston Forging Designs

and Skirt Styles Explained". Retrieved 2018-07-15.

3. ^ Ricardo (1922), p. 116.

4. ^ Ricardo (1922), p. 149.

 5. ^ Piston with improved side loading resistance, 2009-10-12,
retrieved 2018-04-22

6. ^ Ricardo (1922), pp. 119–120, 122.

7. ^ Irving, Two stroke power units, pp. 13–15.

8. ^ Irving, Two stroke power units, pp. 15–16.

9. ^ "Racing Piston Technology – Piston Weight And Design – Circle

Track Magazine". Hot Rod Network. 2007-05-31. Retrieved 2018-
04-22.

Bibliography

[edit]

 Irving, P.E. (1967). Two-Stroke Power Units. Newnes.

 Ricardo, Harry (1922). The Internal Combustion Engine. Vol. I: Slow-

Speed Engines (1st ed.). London: Blackie.

External links

[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pistons.

 Piston Engines Essay

 How Stuff Works – Basic Engine Parts

 Piston Motion Equations

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 This page was last edited on 13 September 2024, at 10:11 (UTC).

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