Thermal Analysis of a Zirconium Dioxide Coated Aluminum Alloy Piston

Abstract

Performance and operating costs are the most important factors in internal combustion engines. It is one of the most commonly used methods to coat pistons with advanced technological ceramic materials in order to improve performance and fatigue life in internal combustion engines. In this study, changes in temperature and heat flux were investigated in various thickness coatings made on a 2500 cc turbo diesel engine piston. As bonding coat, NiCrAl was used in a thickness of 0.2 mm, while ZrO₂ (zirconium dioxide) was used in thicknesses of 0.2-0.4-0.6 and 0.8 mm as thermal barrier coating material. The piston was modeled in PTC Creo parametric software and then transferred to ANSYS Workbench environment to create a mathematical model. Engineering calculations were also done using the finite element method.  After the calculation, the temperatures at the depth of 5 mm from the combustion chamber upper surface, the binder layer upper surface, the thermal coating upper surface and the combustion chamber upper surface were compared. As a result, it was observed that the combustion chamber and the section at the depth of 5 mm from the combustion chamber had a temperature decrease of 13%.