Piston rings appear to be a very simple component. At first glance, piston rings seem to be a flat piece of metal that simply take up space between the piston and the cylinder wall, that can easily, and inexpensively, be replaced when needed. A closer look at these engineer marvels shows the actual complex nature of these components. Total Seal Piston Rings has devoted decades in engineering cutting edge piston rings for competition.

While they may seem simplistic, piston rings have decades of engineering invested in their design.

We are used to being exposed to a plethora of marketing terms, most of which get dismissed as ploys to get consumers to buy the products. However, many of these terms used in marketing are actually engineering terms that describe features of the products. Take “positive twist” in piston rings for example.

Keith Jones shows where material is removed to allow piston ring twist.

We’ve seen politician try to put a positive twist on their policies, which has lead to a misconception of the term. When it comes to engineering, positive twist explains a design feature that is employed to solve an issue. As we see in the video, a piston ring manufactured with positive twist is designed to seal the area around the ring to prevent combustion gas, or oil, from escaping around the ring. 

Total Seal Piston Rings has a series of video on their homepage that are very useful in cutting through the marketing jargon and explaining the different engineering aspects of piston rings. These videos can be found by going to Total Seal Piston Ring’s homepage and clicking on the YouTube Video link. Make sure you have plenty of time because you will find several of these videos too interesting to pass up.