OPTIMIZATION AND DESIGN OF PETROL ENGINE FLYWHEEL FOR VARIABLE SPEEDS

Abstract

A flywheel used in machines serves as a reservoir which stores energy during the period
when the supply of energy is more than the requirement and releases it during the period when the
requirement of energy is more than supply. For example, in I.C. engines, the energy is developed
only in the power stroke which is much more than engine load, and no energy is being developed
during the suction, compression and exhaust strokes in case of four stroke engines. The excess
energy is developed during power stroke is absorbed by the flywheel and releases it’s to the crank
shaft during the other strokes in which no energy is developed, thus rotating the crankshaft at a
uniform speed. The flywheel is located on one end of the crankshaft and serves two purposes. First,
through its inertia, it reduces vibration by smoothing out the power stroke as each cylinder fires.
Second, it is the mounting surface used to bolt the engine up to its load. The aim of the project is to
design a flywheel for a multi cylinder petrol engine flywheel using the different speeds and to
analyze to get better results. A 2D drawing is drafted using the calculations. A parametric model of
the flywheel is designed using 3D modeling software Catia. The forces acting on the flywheel are
also calculated. The strength of the flywheel is validated by applying the forces on the flywheel in
analysis software Ansys. Analysis is done for two materials Cast Iron and Aluminum Alloy to
compare the results. Catia is the standard in 3D product design, featuring industry-leading
productivity tools that promote best practices in design. Ansys is general purpose finite element
analysis (FEA) software package. Finite Element Analysis is a numerical method of deconstructing
a complex system into very small pieces (of user-designated size) called elements.