Tribology International
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/triboint
Low viscosity shear heating in piston skirts EHL in the low initial
engine start up speeds
Syed Adnan Qasim a,n, M. Afzaal Malik a, Mumtaz Ali Khan a, Riaz A. Mufti b
a
b
National University of Sciences and Technology, College of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, Peshawar Road, Rawalpindi 46000, Pakistan
National University of Sciences and Technology, School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, H-12, Islamabad, Pakistan
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 1 August 2010
Received in revised form
14 April 2011
Accepted 20 April 2011
Available online 13 May 2011
Absence of elastohydrodynamic lubricating (EHL) lm causes piston wear in low speed cold initial
engine start up, while shearing of low viscosity lubricant in few cycles affects its load carrying capacity.
Shear heating effects are incorporated in 2-D hydrodynamic and EHL model by solving 2-D heat
equation. EHL pressures are calculated using inverse solution technique. Comparative analysis is based
on viscous dissipation coupled with piston motion, changes in pressure, lm thickness and viscosity.
This study suggests that the increase in temperature varies with speed to affect piston eccentricities,
viscosity and lm thickness. This optimizes low start up speed for a few engine cycles.
& 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Elastohydrodynamic lubrication
Piston skirt
Shear heating
Initial engine start up
1. Introduction
An ineffective lubrication of piston skirts causes adhesive wear
of the skirts and liner surfaces in the cold initial engine start up.
Adhesive wear is caused by partially ooded conditions, absence
of EHL lm and low hydrodynamic pressures. These factors also
affect the engine performance, reliability and operational life. In
the normal engine operation, combustion generates a tremendous
amount of heat. The engine heat removal mechanisms remove
some of the heat but a part of it manages to ow down from the
piston crown up to the bottom surface of the skirts. The lubricant
owing over the surface of the skirts absorbs the heat continuously during the entire duration of the normal engine operation.
The continuous heat absorption increases the engine lubricant
temperature substantially. Heat generated due to viscous shearing also adds up to enhance the lubricant temperature during the
normal engine running. The lubricant ows through the engine oil
passages and absorbs extra heat. During the normal engine
operation, the lubricant fails to shed away all the accumulated
heat. The lubricant temperature remains very high as compared
to that at the ambient conditions. High temperature reduces
viscosity, lm thickness and load carrying capacity of the lubricant and causes its degradation. Such frequent temperature-prone
viscosity reductions and lubricant degradations may ultimately
n
lead to engine failure [1]. At the time of initial cold engine start
up, the lubricant viscosity and surface of its ow passages are at
the ambient temperature. The lubricant viscosity at ambient
conditions is always more than that at the elevated temperatures.
When an engine starts up, the heat ow paths from the combustion chamber to the cylinder-head are available for maximum
heat removal. An effective engine cooling system functions at
maximum efciency. The cold piston crown and the cylinder liner
walls are in place. Such arrangements in a few cold engine start
up cycles do not let most of the combustion heat to travel
down to the surface of the piston skirts and alter the lubricant
temperature signicantly. In a few initial cold engine start up cycles,
shear heating is anticipated to be the major contributor towards
increasing the lubricant temperature. Hence, it may be logical to
ignore the minor variations in lubricant temperature due to combustion in the initial engine start up. This assumption facilitates in
modeling the viscous heating effects in the initial engine start up. A
piston skirts EHL model in the initial engine start up incorporates the
effects of shear heating on lubricant viscosity, hydrodynamic pressures and the contact geometry of the interacting skirts and liner
surfaces [2]. This is due to the fact that the thermal effects have a
more dominating inuence on the lubricant lm thickness than its
non-Newtonian behavior [3]. Viscous heating transforms the hydrodynamic and EHL regimes to become thermohydrodynamic (THD)
and thermoelastohydrodynamic lubrication (TEHL) regimes. Most of
the early researchers ignored temperature-based viscosity changes
and instead primarily focused their attention on the normal engine
operating conditions. They approximated such effects by taking the
pressure eld as Hertzian with no consideration of changes in the
Nomenclature
C
Cf
Cg
Cp
E1, E2
F
Ff
Ffh
FG
Fh
R
T
To
T nij 1
T nij
FIC
F~IC
FIP
F~IP
Ipis
K
L
M
Mf
Mfh
Mh
U
a
b
eb
et
e_ b
e_ t
e b
e t
h
hehl
l
mpis
mpin
p
r
u, v
o
t 1, u 2
u
Z
j
k
rCp
Dt
1135
Piston velocity
Vertical distance from piston skirt top to piston pin
Vertical distance from piston skirt top to center of
gravity
Piston skirts bottom eccentric displacement
Piston skirts top eccentric displacement
Velocity term of piston skirts bottom eccentricities
Velocity term of piston skirts top eccentricities
Acceleration term of piston skirts bottom
eccentricities
Acceleration term of piston skirts top eccentricities
Mean oil lm thickness
Film thickness in the EHL regime
Connecting rod length
Mass of piston
Mass of piston pin
Hydrodynamic pressure
Crank radius
Velocity components along x and y directions
Crank angle
k/rCp, called the thermal diffusivity.
Connecting rod angle
Crank rotation speed
Poissons ratio
Elastic deformation of piston skirts
Piston skirts angle in degree
Dynamic viscosity of lubricant
Viscous dissipation
Thermal conductivity of lubricant.
Product of lubricant density and specic heat.
Time step
1136
2. Governing equations
conditions are
@p
@p
0;
@x y 0 @x y p
p0, when x1 rx r x2 ; px,0 px,L 0
The normal force due to the hydrodynamic pressure and
its moment about the piston pin are found by integrating the
already determined hydrodynamic pressure, as shown by the
relationship [11]
ZZ
Fh
px,ycos x dxdy
8
A
B C p r sin C
Mh
ZZ
Mfh
px,yaycos x dxdy
A
ZZ
11
Ipis
L
mpis ab 1 bL
mpis ab bL
Ipis
L
e b
y
h C et tcos x eb tet t cos x
L
12
M Ms M f
4
Ms FG Cp F~ IC Cg
13
where f x,y denes the skirts surface prole due to the manufacturing imperfections and are neglected.
2.4. Oil lm temperature rise and heat equation
Hydrodynamic pressures generated over the total skirts surface area A in the x and y-direction, are calculated using the 2-D
Reynolds equation [11]:
@
@p
@
@p
@h
h3
h3
6ZU
7
@x
@x
@y
@y
@y
The range of x in dimensionless form is between 01 and 751
angle for the combined length of both skirts of piston. The range
of y in dimensionless form is from 0.5 to 0.5 if the mid-line
of piston skirts surface is selected as datum. The boundary
Zj Z
2
15
@y @x
@x
@y
Table 1
Input parameters including piston geometry.
Sl. no.
Parameter
Value
Sl. no.
Parameter
Value
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
mpis
R
L
mpin
Cp
C
0.295 kg
0.0415 m
0.0338 m
0.09 kg
0.001 m
0.00001 m
0.03187 Pa s
0.133 m
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
a
b
Cg
u1, u2
E1, E2
r
Y y1 y2
To
0.0125 m
0.0015 m
0.0002 m
0.3
200 GPa
0.0418 m
751
40 1C/313 K
Z
l
Zj Z
16
@y @x
At constant viscosity, the dissipation term is given by [9]
@u @v 2
j
17
@y @x
Considering heat convection along x-direction and heat
conduction along y-direction, the above energy equation can be
written as [10]
!
@T
@T
@2 T
u
K 2
j
rf Cf
18
@t
@x
@ y
1137
@x
L @y
@x
@y
@y
22
where
h
h
x
y
pc2
; x ; y ; p
c
R
L
6ZUR
23
FMv G
24
L
@x2
@y2
2
;
h
h2
@h =@y
h1:5
25
26
2
2
27
28
4. Numerical solution
1138
1139
Fig. 1. Piston skirts eccentricities: (a) At 500 rpm in hydrodynamic regime. (b) At 600 rpm in hydrodynamic regime. (c) At 700 rpm in hydrodynamic regime. (d) At
500 rpm in EHL regime. (e) At 600 rpm in EHL regime. (f) At 700 rpm in EHL regime. (g) Comparison of skirts top and bottom eccentricities in EHL regime.
600 rpm. A speed increase to 700 rpm shifts the peak pressure to
the left of the center of the skirts top surface. Such changes are
attributed to the lm thickness, lubricant ow and inertia effects,
which are the functions of the engine start up speed. In the midcompression stroke, the pressure elds show a tremendous
increase in the hydrodynamic pressure. An increase in the speed
from 500 to 600 rpm increases the pressure over the right side of
the top surface. From 600 to 700 rpm, the changes in the
gradients and pressure intensities shift the peak pressure to the
left side. A relatively large eccentric displacement of the skirts top
surface increases the lm thickness and intensies the hydrodynamic pressure. A speed increase from 500 to 700 rpm changes
the pressure gradients in the rst half of the expansion stroke.
Shear heating, lubricant ow rate, lm thickness and transverse
piston eccentricities change the pressure gradients. In the expansion stroke, combustion force brings fundamental changes to
1140
Fig. 2. (a), (b) and (c): Film thickness proles at 500, 600 and 700 rpm. (d), (e) and (f): Hydrodynamic pressure elds at 901 crank angle for 500, 600 and 700 rpm.
(g), (h) and (i): Hydrodynamic pressure elds at 4501 crank angle for 500, 600 and 700 rpm.
1141
Fig. 3. (a), (b) and (c): Viscosity proles in hydrodynamic regime at 500, 600 and 700 rpm. (d), (e) and (f): Viscosity proles in EHL regime at 500, 600 and 700 rpm.
(g) Comparison of viscosity changes in the hydrodynamic regime.
1142
Fig. 4. (a), (b) and (c): Temperature proles in the hydrodynamic regime at 500, 600 and 700 rpm. (d), (e) and (f): Temperature proles in the EHL regime at 500, 600 and
700 rpm.
Fig. 5(a), (c) and (e) show the temperature elds over the skirts
surface at the stated start up speeds. Generally, the temperature rise
is more over the right side of the skirts surface than the left side due
to viscous shearing. This trend exposes the vulnerability of the right
side to the reduced lubricant viscosity and the load carrying capacity.
In case of partially starved piston surface, the thermal distortion
of the right side due to excessive temperature variations may be
possible. In case of high temperatures the chances of lm break down
may not be ruled. The lm break down will invite solid-to-solid
contact and adhesive wear. At 600 rpm, the mean temperature rises
slightly more than that at 500 rpm speed. However, at 700 rpm the
temperature rise is quite high. It implies that the rate of temperature
increase is higher than the engine displacement rate. Hence, a further
increase in the speed will raise the temperatures to very high values.
In the initial engine start up phase, very high lubricant temperatures
contribute towards minimizing the lubricant lm thickness, a possible lm break down and eventually, adhesive wear.
5.9. EHD pressure at low engine speeds
Dimensionless pressure rise over the skirts surface at the three
engine speeds is shown in Fig. 5. At 500 rpm, low intensity EHD
1143
Acknowledgments
The authors are indebted to the College of Electrical and
Mechanical Engineering, National University of Sciences and
Technology for supporting this project. We are also thankful to
the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan for providing
nancial resources for this research.
References
Fig. 5. EHD temperature elds and pressure rise over the surface at 500, 600 and
700 rpm engine speeds. (a) EHD temperature eld at 500 rpm. (b) EHD pressure
rise at 500 rpm. (c) EHD temperature eld at 600 rpm. (d) EHD pressure rise at
600 rpm. (e) EHD temperature eld at 700 rpm. (f) EHD pressure rise at 700 rpm.
pressures build up and rise over the skirts surface. The pressures
increase to maximum values as the engine speed increases to
700 rpm. The high EHD pressures build up close to the midsurface region causes a reduction in the minimum lm thickness
from 4 m to a fraction of a micron in the EHL regime. At 500 rpm, a
reasonably intense EHD pressures build up leads to a peak value
of 300%. The cumulative effect of the peak pressure and temperature causes a net substantial increase in the viscosity. A high EHD
pressure at 600 rpm causes the elastic deformation of the interacting surfaces. Under the starved conditions, the transformation
of pressure into Hertzian may cause adhesive wear of the
interacting surfaces. At 500 rpm, the low EHD pressure intensities
near the bottom surface are insignicant. Such low pressure
intensities grow with an increase in the speed and are visibly
high at 700 rpm.
6. Conclusions
The analysis of shear heating at low initial engine start up
speeds brings some useful conclusions. At 600 rpm the hydrodynamic pressures are relatively more consistent as compared to
those at 500 and 700 rpm speeds. An increase in the engine speed
reduces the piston eccentric displacements and minimizes the
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