Dynamic Simulation of a Piston for Compressor Application and Correlation with Bench Tests

Piston dynamic analysis has widely been used to address and understand the phenomena between the sliding surfaces of the piston and bore and the lubrication conditions between them. One of the numerical analysis that can be done is the evaluation of hydrodynamic behavior in order to reduce the sliding resistance as much as possible, reducing friction due to mechanical and thermal loads exerted from the piston skirt to the rigid bore. This analysis is typically done in internal combustion piston applications. This paper presents an analysis through dynamic simulation of a piston for a compressor application used in the brake system of commercial vehicles Class 5 through Class 8. Several modifications of the piston profile and ovality were done to optimize the results in product validation and improve product performance for compressor applications. The result was a good correlation between the dynamic simulation outputs and the product validation tests.