Patent ID: 6885964

Claim:
A method for thermal analysis having an execution process in which a target region on a piston in an internal combustion engine is divided by dividing a geometric model of the piston into a finite number of finite elements or cells and then the thermal analysis is conducted on the target region using the results of the division of the target region, said execution process comprising the steps of: obtaining a temperature distribution in the piston using heat transfer coefficients obtained at a plurality of positions on a surface of the target model that is divided into target regions in a first step; obtaining at least one temperature of a specific paint in the target regions based on the previously obtained temperature distribution in a second step; calculating differences between the at least one temperature at the specific point and at least one corresponding and predetermined target temperatures at the specific point in a third step; determining if the calculated differences fall within a prescribed range in fourth step; and changing the heat transfer coefficients of the first step into updated heat transfer coefficients when the differences are determined to be outside of the prescribed range in a fifth step.