Proceedings of the 2nd IMT-GT Regional Conference on Mathematics, Statistics and Applications

Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, June 13-15, 2006

Finite Element Analysis for Heat Transfer

in the Insulator on Piston Pin of
A Linear Generator Engine

Tulus, Ariffin, A. K., Abdullah, S. and Muhamad, N.

Computational Mechanics Laboratory
Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Faculty of Engineering,
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor DE, Malaysia
tulus jp@yahoo.com

Abstract. This paper presents the heat transfer model of piston pin
in the linear combustion engine incorporating a combustion chamber
and a kickback chamber. It is important to analyze the thermal be-
haviour along the rod inside the engine that conduct the heat directly
from the piston to the magnet. The heat transfer has been analyzed
for two types of piston pin, with insulator and without insulator. The
result of thermal analysis using finite element method shows that the
insulator using teflon can reduce the rod temperature with difference of
110K. Therefore, the magnet temperature is below than the operating
temperature.

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 70J30, 80A17, 65D30

Key words and phrases: Finite Element Method, Heat Transfer,

Linear Generator Engine

1. Introduction
Linear generator internal combustion engines may find application in
the generation of electrical power using linear motion. The operation of
this engine is distinct from that of a conventional slider-crank mechanism
engine, insofar as the motion of the two horizontally opposed pistons is not
externally constrained [5]. This technology is advantageous because it is
mechanically simpler and allows for a great deal more freedom in defining a
piston motion profile, enabling the use of novel combustion regimes [6]. In
addition to its obvious importance in the generation of power, it provides
a key driving input to the heat transfer which originates in the in-cylinder
gasses.
Usually, the linear generators are designed such that electricity is gener-
ated directly from the piston’s oscillating motion back and forth through the
alternator’s coils. Van Blarigan [10] has designed a linear generator such
that the earth permanent magnets are fixed to the piston. A number of
researchers have designed linear generators such that the earth permanent
magnets are connected to the piston by a rod. It has a number of advan-
tages over the conventional rotary generator driven by internal combustion
engine. In particular, the linear system gains improvement in efficiency and
volume reduction.
Heat transfer analysis is very important for components that conduct
heat from the piston to the magnets of a linear generator engine to evaluate
1
2

Figure 1. Components inside the engine

the effect of temperature to the magnet. Wan Mahadi et al. [12] stated
that the intensity of magnetization and the coercive force are elements,
which determine the performance of permanent magnets. Most of linear
generator designs, such as that designed by Van Blarigan [10], use rare
earth permanent magnets, Neodymium Iron Boron. According to Stanford
Magnets Company [7], the permanent magnets have the Curie temperature
of 350◦ C and the maximum operating temperature of 200◦ C.
Piston is a component of engine that comprises directly the combustion
chamber. Normally, for usual internal combustion engine, the heat flux is
highest in the center of the cylinder head, in the exhaust region, and to the
center of the piston [11]. Effective gas temperature is typically 800◦ C [4].
The maximum temperatures occur where the heat flux is high and access
for cooling is difficult. The piston crown conducts heat from the conduction
gases to the cooling oil, to the piston rings, and the piston skirt. In the
linear generator engine, heat generated by combustion is conducted to the
magnet through the piston, pin and rod. So, it is important to analyze the
heat transfer in the piston pin such that the magnet temperature does not
exceed the maximal operation temperature.

Figure 2. Pin and Rod

 3

Temperature distributions in engine components can be calculated from

knowledge of the heat fluxes across the component surface using finite el-
ement analysis techniques. This paper will analyze the heat transfer from
the piston pin to the rod of the linear generator engine in both the combus-
tion and kickback pistons, as depicted in Figure 1, using the finite element
method. The analysis was performed for two models, the first one between
pin and rod without insulator, and the second one an insulator was in-
stalled between pin and rod, as depicted in the Figure 2. The results of this
analysis are the temperature distributions in the pin and the rod for both
computations.

2. Mathematical Model of Heat Generation

The heat generated by combustion depends on the dimension of cylinder
bore, fuel, air-fuel ratio, and lower heating value. Usually the heat generated
by combustion is called as heat addition, Qin . The heat from combustion
chamber is transferred to the cylinder head, cylinder block and piston crown.
Tulus et al. [8] have derived the equation to determine the temperature
around combustion chamber for two-stroke linear engine as follows.
dxb dQw dV dT
(2.1) Qin − =P + mcv
dt dt dt dt
The heat transfer by conduction, per unit area per unit time, q̇, in steady
situation is given by Fourier’s law
(2.2) q̇ = −k∇T
In the convective heat transfer problem, the steady-flow forced convection
and natural convection is considered. The heat flux q̇, transferred to a solid
surface at temperature Tw from a flowing fluid, stream at temperature T is
determined from the relation
(2.3) q̇ = hc (T − Tw )
The heat transferred by radiation can be represented as
(2.4) q̇ = σ(Tg4 − Tw4 )
where Tg and Tw are the gas temperature and surface temperature, respec-
tively.

3. Heat Transfer Analysis using Finite Element Methods

The heat conduction matrix for a volume heat conduction element is
derived from a thermal potential function. The thermal potential function
is
Z
1
(3.1) U =− q̃ · ∇u dV
2 V
The components of the heat flux are related to the components of tem-
perature gradient by

X ∂u
(3.2) qi = − kij
∂xj
j
4

Using equation (3.2), equation (3.1) can be expressed in matrix form as

Z
1 ∂u ∂u
(3.3) U =− b c [kij ] { } dV
2 V ∂xi ∂xj
The temperature, u, at an interior point is a linear combination of the
temperature,{ue }, at the vertices of the element,

(3.4) u = bLe c{ue }

Figure 3. Meshing the model

The thermal gradient vector is, therefore

∂u
(3.5) { } = [Le ]T {ue }
∂xj
The number of rows and columns of [Le,j ] are the number of vertices of
the element and the dimension of the space, respectively. The substitution
of equation (3.5) into equation (3.3) produces an expression with the form

1
(3.6) U = bue c [K e ] {ue }
2
where the element heat conduction matrix is
Z
(3.7) [K e ] = [Le,i ] [kij ] [Le,j ]T dV
V
Referred to [3], the general equation that is solved when finite element
methods are applied to heat transfer analysis may be written in the form.
(3.8) [K]{u} = [B]{u̇} = {P } + {N }
The mesh model of the pin, insulator and rod, is in three-dimensional
as depicted in Figure 3. Ten points tetrahedron meshes are constructed to
 5

all of the solid components.. The dimensions of some components that are
important to the analysis are as in the Table 1.

TABLE 1 Dimension of a number of components that important for cal-

culation

Components Dimension
Cylinder bore diameter 76mm
Outer diameter of pin 13mm
Inner diameter of pin 10mm
Outer diameter of insulator 22mm
Inner diameter of insulator 17mm
Diameter of rod 25mm

The material properties applied to the solids of model are referred to

some references [1] and [4]. The parameters that have to be applied to
the parts of model due to thermal analysis are density, specific heat and
thermal conductivity. The boundary conditions applied to the model are
temperature distribution at the inner surface of the pin, convection to the
ambient and coupled convection between two solids which have a contact to
each another.
According to the cylinder bore diameter in Table 1, by applying the sto-
ichiometric LHV of gasoline 2.96MJ/kg-air, from [8] the peak temperature
near the spark plug is 850 K. The heat transferred by the piston to the pin,
so that the temperature at the contact surfaces of the pin nearest to the
piston is around 500 K [9]. Therefore, it is assumed that the temperature
at the surface of the pin is 500 K.

4. Results and Discussion

Figure 4 shows the temperature distribution from the pin to the rod,
without insulator. The temperature at the piston pin is 500 K. The heat
from the pin is transferred to the rod directly, so that the temperature in
the begin side of rod is 470 K. On the other hand, Figure 5 shows the
temperature distribution from the pin to the rod, with insulator. In this
case, the temperature in the begin side of rod is 360 K. It means that the
insulator can reduce the temperature in the rod up to 110 K.
Figure 6 shows the comparison between the temperature in the rod with-
out insulator and with insulator. This figure shows that, without insulator,
the temperature in the rod at the position 270 mm is around 413 K, The po-
sition 270 mm is the place where the magnet is installed. This temperature
still can be accounted as a safety margin for the permanent magnet which
has maximum operating temperature of 200◦ C (473 K). But it is still higher
than the result from [11], that the temperature distribution in permanent
magnet is between 317 K to 406 K. On the other hand, using insulator,
the temperature at the position 270 mm, is around 310 K. It means that
insulator can reduce the magnet temperature.
6

Figure 4. Temperature Distribution without Insulator

5. Conclusions
It can be concluded that the finite element method can be used to ana-
lyze the thermal model in the linear generator engine. The heat generated
by combustion that is conducted by piston, pin and rod influenced the tem-
perature raise of the magnet. The insulator can reduce the temperature in
the rod near magnet. The temperature of the magnet does not exceed the
maximal operation temperature.

Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank the Malaysia Ministry of Science, Tech-
nology and Innovation for sponsoring this work under the project IRPA
03-02-02-0056-PR0025/04-03

References
[1] Cengel Y. Heat transfer, McGraw-Hill, Singapore, 2003.
[2] Heywood, J.B., Internal combustion engine fundamentals, McGraw-Hill, New York,
1988.
[3] MacNeal R. H. The Nastran Theoretical Manual, Vol. 2, MSC.Software, USA, 1972.
[4] MatWeb, Your Source for Materials Information (http://www.matweb.com) Accessed
2 February 2005.
[5] Nandkumar, S., Two stroke linear engine, M.Sc. Thesis Collection, West Virginia
University, 1998.
[6] Prados, M.A., Towards a Linear Engine. M.Sc. Thesis, Stanford University, 2002.
[7] Stanford Magnets Company. Permanent Magnet Products
(http://www.stanfordmagnets.com/magnet.html) Accessed February 22, 2005.
 7

Figure 5. Temperature Distribution with Insulator

Figure 6. Temperature Profile along the Rod

[8] Tulus, Ariffin A. K., Abdullah S. and Muhamad N. Mathematical Modeling of Heat
Transfer in Combustion Chamber of Two-Stroke Linear Engine. Proceeding of 12th
Mathematical Sciences National Symposium, Gombak, 2004.
[9] Tulus, Ariffin A. K., Abdullah S. and Muhamad N. 2005. Heat Transfer in Pistons of
Linear Combustion Engine Using Finite Element Method. Proceeding of the Interna-
tional Conference on Numerical Analysis in engineering, Jogjakarta, 2005.
[10] Van Blarigan P. Advanced internal combustion electrical generator. Proceedings of
the 2001 DOE Hydrogen Program Review, NREL/CP-570-30535, 2001.
[11] Wan Mahadi W. N. L., Adi S. R., and Nor K. M. Application of the rare earth perma-
nent magnet in linear generator driven by an internal combustion engine, Proceeding
of PECon, Bangi, 2003, pp. 256-261.
8

[12] Wan Mahadi W. N. L., Adi S. R. and Nor K. M. Thermal analysis of Neodymium
Iron Boron (NdFeB) magnet in the linear generator design, Proceeding of AUPEC’4,
Brisbane, 2004.