Calculating Piston Speed in Single Cylinder Engines

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Discussion Overview

The discussion focuses on calculating piston speed and acceleration in single cylinder engines, specifically examining the influence of connecting rod length on these calculations. Participants explore various mathematical approaches and relationships involved in the dynamics of the piston motion.

Discussion Character

  • Technical explanation
  • Mathematical reasoning
  • Exploratory

Main Points Raised

  • One participant inquires about calculating piston speed without considering transmission or the single cylinder aspect, emphasizing the role of rod length.
  • Another participant asks about calculating piston acceleration for both strokes of the engine.
  • A suggestion is made to simplify the problem by focusing on essential information and using a diagram to aid understanding.
  • A participant provides a mathematical framework for determining vertical displacement based on the geometry of the crank and connecting rod, introducing normalized variables for clarity.
  • Another participant presents a formula for maximum acceleration in terms of stroke length, connecting rod length, and crank rotation frequency.
  • Normalized expressions for vertical displacement and its derivatives are shared, with a note on the potential for refinement of the second derivative expression.
  • Graphs illustrating the displacement, velocity, and acceleration functions for various normalized connecting rod lengths are provided as visual aids to the discussion.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants present various approaches and mathematical expressions without reaching a consensus. There are differing methods proposed for calculating piston speed and acceleration, and the discussion remains exploratory with multiple perspectives on the problem.

Contextual Notes

Some mathematical steps and assumptions are not fully resolved, particularly regarding the normalization of variables and the implications of crank angle on the calculations. The discussion also relies on specific definitions of terms like stroke and connecting rod length.

IndustriaL
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how do you calculate piston speed with a single cylinder engine no transmission what I am trying to do is determine the influence of rod length in that problem
 
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how do i calculate the piston acceleration for that on both strokes
 
Start by looking at just the mininum information that you need, ignore stuff like "no transmission" and "single cylinder" as that makes no difference. Start with a simple diagram like that below and see how far you can get from there.
 

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How are you going with this one Industrial, do you have a starting point yet?

Let P1 be the attachment point on the circle and P2 be the attachment point on the piston (big-end bearing and gudeon pin respectively).

Take P1 = ( r cos(q), r sin(q) ),
and P2 = ( 0, y).

Since you know the distance between P1 and P2 is constrainted to be the length l of the connecting rod then you can easily write an expression for the unknown vertical displacement y.

I recommend using "normalized" variables for y and l by expressing everything as multiples of the radius r. For example if you let l=ar and y=zr then the expression you get in terms of these normalized parameters is,

cos^2(q) + ( z - sin(q) )^2 = a^2.

Just solve this for z as a function of q and you're set up to work out the things you require.

BTW, Note that I've used q to represent the crank angle because I was too lazy to use latex and write the more conventional theta.
 
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If stroke is s and conrod length is L, max acceleration is
[tex](2\pi f)^2\left(\frac{s}{2}+\frac{s^2}{4L}\right)[/tex]
where f is the rotation frequency of the crank. So if f is in rpm, and s and L are in feet, this will give you feet per minute squared.
 
Here are the normalized values that I got for the vertical displacement (z=y/r) and it's first and second derivatives as a function of crank angle (q) and normalized connecting rod length (a=L/r). I think they're correct, though I'm sure that the expression for second derivative could be tidied up a bit. Obviously for constant crank angular velocity (omega) you just need to multiply the first derivative by omega and the second by omega^2 to get the time derivatives (by the chain rule).


z = sin(q) + sqrt( a^2 - cos^2(q) )

dz/dq = cos(q) + sin(q) cos(q) / sqrt( a^2 - cos^2(q) )

d^2z/dq^2 = -sin(q) + (cos^2(q) - sin^2(q)) / sqrt( a^2 - cos^2(q) ) - sin^2(q) cos^2(q) / sqrt( a^2 - cos^2(q) )^3
 
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Here are some graphs of those function for parameter a=2, a=3 and a=4 (first, second and third attachments respectively).

In each figure the solid curve is displacement, the dashed curve is velocity and the lightly dashed curve is acceleration.
 

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