Abstract
The amount of research carried out on piston assemblies of engines is a good indication of the problems which have been encountered. Fortunately this is one branch of engineering where research is usually well ahead of production failures. The stresses in the various components during actual operation are not perhaps as yet fully understood and recent experimental work has revealed some further information. The optimum design of pistons taking into account crown thicknesses, clearances, skirt thicknesses and thermal effects is considered in detail. The stresses with gudgeon pin and boss are calculated and the advantages of various materials are discussed. The importance of manufacturing tolerances is underlined and the paper concludes with some notes about the more exacting design requirements which can be expected following the trend towards higher compression ratios.
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