Functional Requirements of a Cylinder Block:

Because engine blocks are a critical component of an engine, it must satisfy a number of functional requirements. These requirements include withstanding high cycle fatigue stresses, thermal strains, and aggressive wear conditions over the full life of the engine, housing internal moving parts and fluids, ease of service and maintenance.

REQUIRED MATERIAL PROPERTIES:

The one-dimensional era of engine design is finished. The current approach considers the loads acting at each point of the engine block. (Vollrath, 2003)

In order for an engine block to meet the above functional requirements, the engineering material(s) used to manufacture the the cylinder block material should have adequate strength and rigidity in compression, bending, and torsion. This is necessary to resist the gas pressure loads and also for the components, which convert the reciprocating motion of individual piston into a single rotary motion.

The cylinder-block material should

(a) be relatively cheap,

(b) readily produce castings with good impressions,

(c) be easily machined,