Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Applied Sciences: Research Areas

Abstract:
An internal combustion engine is one in which combustion of mixture (air-fuel) burn internally. It contain different parts which are to relate together to have required engine efficiency. Among these parts is the piston which contains the piston ring that maintains a perfect seal between the cylinder wall and the piston. The dimensional relationship of the piston rings determines the degree by which they seats in the groove of the piston thereby determine the efficiency of the compression of the engine which affects the output of the engine. This paper examines the effect of piston ring axial thickness on the piston ring gap. Visual basic computer code was developed for computation of piston ring axial thickness corresponding to the piston ring gap. Aided by the developed software, the relationship between piston ring axial thickness and piston ring gap was investigated. Results obtained for case studies examined by varying the angular coordinate of the ring, showed that piston ring gap increases with piston ring axial thickness. The numerical results were processed with the Microsoft Excel package, which yield a relationship of the form, where a, and bare real characteristic values of a particular problem.

Keywords: internal combustion engine, piston ring, piston ring gap, piston radial thickness, piston axial thickness and angular coordinate

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