Analysis of Magnesium-Lithium Alloy Piston

In modern automobile world, vehicle parts are created using materials that are strong and which are having minimum weight. One of the most important parts in a vehicle engine is its piston. A piston should be strong enough to withstand structural and thermal loads along with good conductivity, corrosion resistance, and it should have minimum weight to reduce inertia force due to reciprocating motion. Commonly used piston material is Aluminium alloys. Magnesium lithium alloys are ultra lightweight material having only half density than that of Aluminium alloys. Magnesium lithium alloys are less strong when compared to Aluminium alloys and they react more to thermal loads and corrosion. This projects aim is to find out whether Magnesium lithium alloys can be used as piston material. For that, piston is modeled based on basic dimensions and properties of a Maruti Omni engine. Different pistons were modeled based on properties of Aluminium alloy (B390) and Magnesium-lithium alloy (LA141), to withstand same pressure and thermal load. The pistons were then analyzed in ANSYS 16.0 software for comparison. Thermal and structural loads were applied and the combined results were studied.