Taking a highly strengthened diesel engine piston as the research object, the topology optimization and orthogonal test method are carried out to achieve the requirement for light weighting design and the heat flow control, respectively. The heat insulation structures which include the piston head with heat insulation material, air cavity and heat insulation pad are applied to the optimized topology piston. The significant influence factors for the temperature field are determined by orthogonal experiment and extreme difference analysis. In addition, a multi-objective optimization method is used to establish the overall heat flow evaluation model and each insulated composite piston is estimated. Then, the heat flux distribution and stress field are obtained using finite element analysis. Through the multi-disciplinary collaborative teaching and numerical simulation training, it not only promotes the students to digest and absorb professional knowledge, but also enhances their innovative thinking abilities.

High temperatures are generated due to the sliding contacts between the rubbing surfaces of the friction clutch system. In this work, by considering the effective thermal contact conductance under sliding conditions, a simulation model of a two-dimensional transient temperature field of the clutch disc was developed. A numerical solution to obtain the surface temperature at different radii was presented based on the finite difference method. Compared with the experimental data, the proposed model for estimating the surface temperature is more accurate than the conventional prediction method. The results showed that the errors of the calculated temperatures at radii of 114 and 106 mm have obviously reduced by 12.98% and 12.60%, respectively. In addition, the influences of pressure and relative speed on the surface temperature were investigated. The temperature increases with the increase of the relative speed and pressure during the sliding period, and there is an interaction effect between pressure and speed on the surface temperature rise.