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3.4.
Valve Mechanisms
A. Side Camshaft with Push-rod and Rockers
Bucket Follower
This type of valve operating mechanism (Fig. 3.36) uses :
(a) a camshaft,
(b) a sliding inverted bucket cam follower
The Poppet-valve
The poppet-valve (Fig. 3.38) head is the highest loaded part as it is subjected to uneven
impact stresses across its diameter when the valve comes down on its seat. Also the head has
to withstand thermal streses due to the temperature variation over the head and between the
Poppet-valve Dimensions
Following are typical valve dimensions (Fig. 3.39) relative to the throat diameter (dt).
Maximum cone diameter, d2 = 105 dt to 1.15 dt
Minimum cone diameter, d\ = 0.95 dt to 1.0 dt
Conical seat width, c = 0.10 dt to 0.12 dt
Parallel thickness of head, hi = 0.025 dt to 0.045 dt
Parallel and taper thickness of head, h% = 0.10 dt to 0.14 dt
Fig. 3.41. Heat path and temperature distribution for an exhaust valve.
When the valve is closed, most of the heat is transferred to the valve seat and the coolant
circulating in the cylinder head, but when the valve opens, the heat travels only through the
valve stem. Therefore the hottest part of the valve is its neck, the next hottest zone is the centre
region of the crown down to its neck, and the coolest zone is around the valve-head rim and the
parallel region of the stem as it enters its guide (Fig. 3.41B). Thus the valve-head temperature
may be as low as 773 K around the head rim, increasing at the neck under full-load conditions
to around 1073 K and it may rise to 1173 K under abnormal conditions.
The valve stem operates in a guide sleeve and is subjected to a to-and-fro sliding motion
added to a rotary oscillating one in certain cases. The guide sleeve may reach a temperature of
673 K at the mouth of the exhaust port, progressively decreasing to around 473 K at the
valve-spring end. Therefore the stem and guide should have compatible materials to function
effectively for a long time with very little wear under mostly boundary-lubrication conditions.
The valve-stem tip must be sufficiently hard to withstand the tappet impact and in some designs
must resist any scuffing due to relative rubbing between the valve-stem tip and the rocker-arm
pad (Fig. 3.49E). The shaded width in the figure represents the degree of relative movement
between the rocker and the valve-stem tip.
3.4.7.
Poppet-valve Materials
The three basic alloys used in exhaust valves are
(i) Silicon-chromium steels,
(ii) Austenitic chromium-nickel steels,
(Hi) Nimonic nickel-base alloys.
Silicon-chromium steel can function upto temperature of 923 K and early exhaust valves
were made from this steel. A popular composition of this steel is 0.8% carbon, 0.4% manganese,
1.3% nickel, 2% silicon, 20% chromium, and the balance (75.5%) iron.
Addition of the nickel to 12% improves the hot corrosion resistance considerably so that the
valve can operate at slightly higher temperature. Hence valves were made from austenitic
chromium-nickel steels such as ’21-12′, which contains 0.25% carbon, 1.5% manganese, 1%
silicon, 12% nickel, and 21% chromium. A further improved austenitic chromium-nickel steel
is the ’21-4N’ which provides a higher hardness for both cold and hot conditions and a greater
degree of work-hardening. The composition is 0.5% carbon, 0.25% silicon, 9% manganese, 21%
chromium, 4% nickel, 0.4% nitogen, and 64.85% iron. Because of the large amounts of chromium
and manganese the steel absorbs nitrogen, which improves the wear resistance when subjected
to high temperatures and loads.
For high temperature operations and heavy-duty engines nimonic alloys are more suitable
materials. An example is the ’80A’ which has a composition of 0.05% carbon, 1% manganese,
0.6% silicon, 20% chromium, 2% cobalt, 2.5% titanium, 1.2% aluminium, 5% iron and 67.65%
nickel. These nickel-based alloys have a higher hot strength and hardness, and better fatigue
and corrosion resistance than austenitic steels, but are more expensive. To overcome the high
cost of the valve a two-piece valve can be made with a nickel-base-alloy head joined to a steel
stem by friction welding.
The service life of both austenitic steel and nimonic alloy valves can now span upto 150000
km, compared to the traditional 22000 km between relapping of the valve interfaces. For
heavy-duty applications, exhaust-valve head-rim seats may be faced by a hard alloy such as
stellite. This cobalt-based alloy has a composition of 1.8% carbon, 9% tungsten, 29% chromium
and 60.2% cobalt. Since inlet valves operate at temperatures of about 773 K they do not need
such highly alloyed valve material. A typical inlet-valve material is silicon-chromium steel,
which has a composition of 0.4% carbon, 0.5% nickel, 0.5% manganese, 3.5% silicon, 8%
chromium, and 87.1% iron.
3.4.8.
Valve Guides
Normally the valve seat is integrally formed in the head’casting of automotive engines.
Insert seats are also used in some engines, which allow for easy repair of valve seats. Valve seat
distortion is one of the major causes of poor valve service life. Distortion may be transient or
permanent. The former is due to pressure and
thermal stress and the latter as a result of
mechanical stress, so that proper care must be
taken during assembly of the engine.
Fig. 3.42. Valve guides.
A. Integral. B. Plain sleeve.
C. Shouldered sleeve.
A guide hole in the cylinder head supports
and guides the sliding action of the valve stem,
so that the head is maintained in a central
position relative to the valve seat while opening
and closing. Such holes are known as valve
guides. For normal duty engines, the guide con-
sists of directly drilled and reamed holes in
case-iron cylinder heads. For aluminium-alloy
cylinder heads and for heavy-duty cast-iron
heads, separate sleeve or bush guides are
pressed into preformed holes (Fig. 3.4).
The guide sleeve or bush is made from good
quality pearlitic cast iron, to minimize stem-to-guide wear, or from bronze to improve the heat
flow to the cylinder-head coolant passages. Although the plain sleeve is adequate for most
applications, but sometimes shouldered bushes are used to position the guide in the cylinder
head. The guide generally protrudes slightly above the spring-seat in the cylinder head, to
prevent excessive oil draining down the stem.
The length of the guiding portion of the sleeve should be 8 to 10 times the stem diameter.
The external diameter of the bush sleeve should be within 1.4 to 1.6 times the stem diameter.
The clearance between the valve stem and the guiding surface of the sleeve varies from 0.02 to
0.05 mm for the inlet valves and from 0.04 to 0.07 mm for the exhaust valves. These values,
however, depend to some extent on the stem and guide materials and the operating tempera-
tures. Worn integral guide holes can be reamed, and the old valves are replaced with new valves
having oversized stems. When existing valve guides are worn, they can be replaced with new
guides.
The valve-to-stem clearance must be sufficient to allow lubrication but excessive clearance
causes the stem to rock and so ‘bell mouth’ the valve guide. As wear occurs, the contact between
the stem and the guide becomes less effective, so that the valve’s mean operating temperature
rises. Lubrication may also deteriorate at this temperature as a result of gum formation.
Protrusion of the valve guides into the exhaust port should generally be avoided otherwise this
may raise the operating temperature of the exhaust valve’s head. Oil leakage past the valve
guide is a problem in the overhead valve engine, especially around the intake valve stem where
vacuum exists. Seals of suitable design made of synthetic rubbers and plastics are, therefore,
used to arrest this leakage.
3.4.9.
To reduce spring surge, a variable-pitch spring is incorporated in which the pitch between
adjacent coils from the valve-stem tip to the stationary valve guide and seat is progressively
made smaller. As the valve opens, the coils are progressively compressed solid, starting from
the close-pitch cylinder-head end, due to which the number of active coils is reduced. Conversely,
during closing of the valve, the number of active coils increases. This variation of number of
active coils during opening and closing of the valve provides a variable spring rate and a
constantly changing natural frequency, which reduces both springs resonance and surge.
Double springs.
The double nests of springs in the system provides high spring loads on the valve for a given
valve-spring space. To exert the same total force, the stiffness of each spring in the nest has to
be lower than that of a single spring. Therefore, the natural frequencies of the nested springs
is also be lower (since a spring’s natural frequency is proportional to the square root of its
stiffness), which encourages surge.
One advantage of using double springs is that, under favorable conditions, resonance in one
spring may be partially damped out by the no resonant action of the other. Moreover, if any one
spring breaks, the other continues to operate. This avoids valve drop into the cylinder causing
damage.
Pre-stressing.
Springs are normally pre-stressed by scragging, in which the spring is compressed until the
stress in the outside fibers of the wire is greater than the yield stress of the material, causing
plastic deformation of the outside steel fibers. This induces residual stresses so that the yield
strength of the steel is raised.
Shot-peening.
Springs are provided with a short-peening treatment, which considerably improves the
fatigue strength of the steel. During treatment, the spring is bombarded all over with round
particles of hardened steel (shot) at high velocity. This produces compressive stresses in the
outside fibers of the coil wire. These residual compressive stresses help to prevent tensile
stresses being developed on the surface of the wire. But, if any imperfection exists in the outside
fibers of the wire, such tensile stresses initiate crack propagation leading to fatigue failure.
Valve-rotators.
Valve-rotators may be non-positive or positive types. The former type has a non-positive
action which enables the valve to ratate at random when it is opening and closing. The latter
type has a positive action which directly rotates the valve as it operates. The objective of valve
rotation is to improve valve seating by clearing the seat faces of carbon particles, which might
otherwise become attached to them. The gradual reposition of valve relative to its seat improves
valve and seat life.
Non-positive Valve-rotators.
Out of the two
common designs used in non-positive arrangement
one method incorporates loose-fitting collets, while
the other adopts a thimble which fits over the valve-
stem tip.
Rocker-shaft
Rocker-shaft provides a rigid pivot sup-
port for the rocker-arms. These shafts are
machined from hollow steel tubing. These
are mounted and clamped on cast-iron or
aluminium-alloy pedestals, which are
generally fitted between each pair of rock-
er-arms (Fig. 3.48). Therefore, a four-
cylinder engine has four pedestal support
brackets.
For lubrication purposes radial holes are drilled through the rocker-shaft to align with each
rocker-arm, and both ends of the shaft are plugged to prevent the oil leakage. One of the support
pedestals normally incorporate a vertical drilled hole to supply the oil from the camshaft to the
hollow rocker-shaft. This hole matches with a corresponding radial hole in the shaft. When
reassembling the rockers and shaft, these two holes must align, to restore oil supply to the shaft.
The material for these tubular shafts is carbon steel, a typical composition of which is 0.55%
carbon, 0.2% silicon, 0.65% manganese, and the balance iron. After machining, the shaft is
case-hardened to withstand the rubbing action.
3.4.13.
Rocker-arm
A rocker-arm rocks or oscillates about its pivot (Fig. 3.49) and relays the push-rod up-and-
down movement to the stem of the poppet-valve. Therefore this arm acts as a rocking beam.
The pivot (either a shaft or a spherical fulcrum post) is offset and positioned in the push-rod
so that for a given cam lobe rise, the corresponding valve life is about 1.4 times greater. This
allows lobe profile of 40% smaller than is otherwise necessary. The actual rocker-arm pivot ratio
and therefore the cam lobe size vary to certain extent depending on design requirements.
Rocker-arms may be manufactured from materials which can be cast, forged, or cold-pressed
to shape. These are cast from malleable cast iron with induction-hardening at selected regions.
For forging a medium-carbon steel with a typical composition of 0.55% carbon, 0.2% silicon,
0.65% manganese, and the balance (98.6%) iron can be used. This can be hardened by quenching
from a temperature of 1085 K to 1115 K and then tempering at a suitable temperature between
825 K and 975 K. For cold-pressing a low-carbon steel of composition 0.2% carbon, 0.8%
manganese, and the balance (99%) iron can be used. Rockers, when manufactured in this
method, incorporate a hardened-steel contact pad attached at the valve-stem end.
3.4.14.
Push-rod
The push-rod is a strut which transmits the to-and-fro cam-follower movement to one end
of the pivoting rocker-arm. Both ends of the push-rod constitute part of pair of semi-spherical
ball-and-socket joint, which permits the rod to tilt slightly and revolve when the rocker-arm
oscillates about its pivots. The bottom of the rod is convex that fits in a matching recess in the
follower. The top of the rod is expanded to support a concave-recess seat that locates with the
adjustable tappet screw on the end of the rocker-arm. For medium capacity engines the push-rod
in general is solid (Fig. 3.49B), but for large engines hollow rods with hardened end-pieces forced
into the tubing are used (Fig. 3.49C).
Push-rods are usually manufactured from carbon-manganese steel, a popular composition
of which is 0.35% carbon, 0.2% silicon, 1.5% manganese, and the balance (97.95%) iron. The rod
is hardened by quenching it from a temperature of 1113 to 1143 K and then tempering between
823 and 933 K. This produces a hardness of 220 to 280 Brinell number. Alternatively a steel
with a higher carbon content suitable for induction-hardening is used.
3.4.15.
Push-rod-end Adjustment.
The rockers are centrally pivoted on a rocker-shaft (Fig. 3.49A and B). The arm has a
hardened face pad with a curved surface at one end for smooth contact with the valve-stem tip.
A thraded hole at the other end holds an adjustable tappet screw with a lock-nut. The tip of this
screw has a hardened spherical ball. This ball fits into a matching concave recess formed in the
top of the push-rod.
For adjustment the correct size of feller gauge is slipped between the valve-stem tip and the
rocker pad. Then the lock-nut is slightly slackened and, using a screwdriver, the tappet screw
is turned to either increase or decrease the clearance. For correct clearance, the feeler blade
should just feel grip as it is pulled across the valve-stem tip. The lock-nut is then tightened and
the clearance rechecked. Self-locking screws are also sometimes used (Fig. 3.49A).
Central-pivot Adjustment.
This mechanism (Fig. 3.49C) incorporates the hollow malleable-iron or pressed-steel type
of rocker having a curved valve-tip contact face at one end. At the other end, a hardened spherical
recess receives the ball-ended push-rod. The rocker pivots on a spherically faced fulcrum seat
of case-hardened sintered-iron. A self-locking nut on a stud post, fixed into the cylinder head,
holds the rocker. The push-rods are located and positioned by guide fork-plates fixed on the
cylinder head.
For the tappet clearance adjustment, the feeler blade is pushed between the valve-stem tip
and the rocker face. The central self-locking nut is then turned either way until the correct
clearance is obtained by the feeling of grip that the valve -stem tip and rocker impart to the
feeler blade.
Valve Cooling
It is necessary to cool the exhaust valve directly or indirectly as it becomes very hot due to
the passage of hot exhaust gases. The valve face and stem conduct heat to the surrounding and
they are relatively cooler than the valve head. A poor valve may cause a valve to run hotter
reducing its life considerably. Additional water circulation is usually provided near the exhaust
valve seating in the engine head. Sodium cooled valves are used in the heavy duty engine and
aircraft engines. These valves have a hollow head and stem, which is partly filled with sodium
or a mixture of salts. During operation of the valve the up and down movement of sodium
transfers the heat near the head portion at a faster rate.
3.4.18.
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