cae case studies: cylinder head cover analysis

The cylinder head cover of a leading passenger car was encountering problems:

• Gasket blow-out at the intake manifold side
• Chipping of the material on the top, indicating high stresses at those regions.

The preliminary analysis with the baseline design involved:

• Modeling the gasket material, using the Shore hardness to find the gasket stiffness
• Modeling the fastening conditions on the cylinder head cover
• Simulation of the static pressure conditions on the internal surface of the cover for room temperature and operating temperature cases
• Analysis of the corresponding displacements and reaction forces on the bottom (sealing) surface of the gasket, and the stresses on the cylinder head cover.

Cylinder Head Cover mesh, showing applied boundary conditions


Results for Cylinder Head Cover finite element analysis

The analysis pinpointed the reasons for failure. Alcyon proposed multiple design changes, and simulated via FEA the effect of each of these changes.