Title: Weight reduction through material changing in a commercial diesel engine: piston pin and connecting rod case studies

Authors: Cristiana Delprete; Carlo Rosso

Addresses: Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24, 10129 Torino, Italy ' Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24, 10129 Torino, Italy

Abstract: In the design of engine components, the demand for increasingly higher power combined with a growing awareness for environmental and energy saving, creates a number of conflicting design constraints that can be overcome with the use of new materials. The present paper evaluates the possibility to use plastic materials for designing two important parts of the crank mechanism: the connecting rod and the piston pin. In particular, the material used for the connecting rod design is PEEK filled with carbon fibre and that used for the piston pin design is carbon fibre prepreg epoxy. The numerical analyses made by the authors prove that plastic materials can be useful for components weight reduction but a complete components revision and changing of design strategy are required. The direct metal replacement with plastic material is not possible, and the improvement of plastic materials performance and the new technology for additive manufacturing can completely change the way of thinking about the engine.

Keywords: connecting rod; piston pin; weight saving; plastic materials.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAUTOC.2017.091400

International Journal of Automotive Composites, 2017 Vol.3 No.2/3/4, pp.83 - 100

Received: 19 Jan 2017
Accepted: 18 May 2017

Published online: 30 Apr 2018 *

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