Project Title

 

Though the generation of renewable energy is increasing day by day, primary source to power the automotive is still internal combustion engines. Even today losses from the drivetrain amount to be, roughly, 60% of total losses in any automobile. Main source of the loss is friction between the engine components. This inspired me, along with three other colleagues, to analyze one of the major contributor to these losses due to friction - that is between piston-rings and the cylinder liner. 

 

In this project major focus was on the experiment to check how much improvement could be accounted for the modified piston ring. In doing so, different possible cross-sections of the piston-ring were analyzed and among them proposed cross-sections was the half elliptical, shown in pictures below.

 

Initial investigation was done with help of ANSYS, just to make sure that piston ring does not fail while in operation. Once the piston rings are manufactured, to compare the performance with original piston-rings; experiment was followed with defined cycle - prescribed in the table below. Entire cycle for both, original and modified piston-rings, type of rings was followed.

 

After each stage various dimensions of piston-ring and piston were taken and also photographs of the piston and piston-head were taken to see the effects visually. Moreover, oil samples were also collected after completion of each stage. Statistical analysis was done on the collected data to keep the results within the 95% confidence interval. 

 

One of the major finding in this project was the improvement in the mechanical efficiency of the engine. At 95% confidence interval measured improvement in the mechanical efficiency was 19%. It was concluded that, because the life cycle analysis is the major factor to check the improvement in the performance of the engine, parametric study is required to validate the achieved result. 

 

During the final year of undergrad, 15% of total workload was allotted to the project and for the project I secured the gradeof 9 (out of 10).