Development of a Diesel-Engine Piston by Incorporating Heat Pipe Technology - Experimental Simulation of Piston Crown

Piston design that incorporates the heat pipe cooling technology may provide a new approach for piston-temperature control. A simulated piston crown that contains an annular reciprocating heat pipe is developed to investigate the effect of heat pipe cooling on the piston crown temperature distribution. For this purpose, a reciprocating engine testing apparatus is designed and constructed. The experimental study focuses on the static and dynamic operational characteristics of the heat pipe and its cooling effect on the simulated piston crown under different power input. The experiment results indicate that a piston crown incorporating a heat pipe can yield a uniform temperature distribution in the ring-bank area of the piston crown. The testing results would also provide the needed information for a possible piston design that incorporates the heat pipe cooling technology for improved thermal-tribological performance.