ABSTRACT
There are pistons that meet safety requirements according to predictions of the current finite element piston modeling methodology but fail on experimental engine tests. In this work a new methodology is proposed for modeling the behavior of diesel pistons during the thermal transient. In addition to the thermal loading, we need also to model the purely mechanical loading. However, it is not only a question of adding such mechanical loading to the analysis. Since the pressure loading is cyclic and plasticity effects are to be taken into account, how to introduce the mechanical loading together with the thermal transient is an important modeling issue. The modeling methodology proposed depends very much on this loading strategy. Selected results that show the usefulness of the methodology are reported.