Advanced Tribological Assessment of Ring Coatings

Author(s):  
Max Maschewske ◽  
Kimm Karrip ◽  
Carol Lynn Deck

Friction reduction within the power cylinder assembly of internal combustion engines continues to be a one of the foremost focuses of engine manufactures. In an effort to better address this topic previously developed bench test rigs, such as the Falex, Cameron-Plint, and EMA-LS9 [1,2], have been utilized. These devices were formerly focused solely on wear mechanisms and material compatibility. Current development of new piston ring coatings has demanded significant refinements to the previously mentioned EMA-LS9 test rig for specific frictional characteristic evaluations. These developments have allowed for coefficient of friction ranking between various piston ring materials in addition to the influence and surface finish on coefficient of friction. This paper examines how the test rig is utilized to characterize upper compression ring materials, surface treatments, and the impact of surface finish. The significance of these results will be examined as it applies to analytical evaluations. From these calculations a demonstration of the effect of surface finish on ring dynamics and gas flow, as well as future piston ring coating developments will be discussed.

Author(s):  
Grant Smedley ◽  
S. H. Mansouri ◽  
Tian Tian ◽  
Victor W. Wong

Friction from the power cylinder represents a significant contribution to the total mechanical losses in internal combustion engines. A reduction in piston ring friction would therefore result in higher efficiency, lower fuel consumption, and reduced emissions. In this study, models incorporating piston ring dynamics and piston secondary motion with elastic skirt deformation were applied to a Waukesha natural gas power generation engine to identify the main contributors to friction within the piston and ring pack system. Based on model predictions, specific areas for friction reduction were targeted and low-friction design strategies were devised. The most significant contributors to friction were identified as the top ring, the oil control ring, and the piston skirt. Model predictions indicated that the top ring friction could be reduced by implementing a skewed barrel profile design or an upward piston groove tilt design, and oil control ring friction could be reduced by decreasing ring tension. Piston design parameters such as skirt profile, piston-to-liner clearance, and piston surface characteristics were found to have significant potential for the reduction of piston skirt friction. Designs were also developed to mitigate any adverse effects that were predicted to occur as a result of implementation of the low-friction design strategies. Specifically, an increase in wear was predicted to occur with the upward piston groove tilt design, which was eliminated by the introduction of a positive static twist on the top ring. The increase in oil consumption resulting form the reduction in the oil control ring tension was mitigated by the introduction of a negative static twist on the second ring. Overall, the low-friction design strategies were predicted to have potential to reduce piston ring friction by 35% and piston friction by up to 50%. This would translate to an improvement in brake thermal efficiency of up to 2%, which would result in a significant improvement in fuel economy and a substantial reduction in emissions over the life of the engine.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 3705
Author(s):  
Ahmad Alshwawra ◽  
Florian Pohlmann-Tasche ◽  
Frederik Stelljes ◽  
Friedrich Dinkelacker

Reducing friction is an important aspect to increase the efficiency of internal combustion engines (ICE). The majority of frictional losses in engines are related to both the piston skirt and piston ring–cylinder liner (PRCL) arrangement. We studied the enhancement of the conformation of the PRCL arrangement based on the assumption that a suitable conical liner in its cold state may deform into a liner with nearly straight parallel walls in the fired state due to the impact of mechanical and thermal stresses. Combining the initially conical shape with a noncircular cross section will bring the liner even closer to the perfect cylindrical shape in the fired state. Hence, a significant friction reduction can be expected. For the investigation, the numerical method was first developed to simulate the liner deformation with advanced finite element methods. This was validated with given experimental data of the deformation for a gasoline engine in its fired state. In the next step, initially conically and/or elliptically shaped liners were investigated for their deformation between the cold and fired state. It was found that, for liners being both conical and elliptical in their cold state, a significant increase of straightness, parallelism, and roundness was reached in the fired state. The combined elliptical-conical liner led to a reduced straightness error by more than 50% compared to the cylindrical liner. The parallelism error was reduced by 60% to 70% and the roundness error was reduced between 70% and 80% at different liner positions. These numerical results show interesting potential for the friction reduction in the piston-liner arrangement within internal combustion engines.


Lubricants ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 124
Author(s):  
Anastasios Zavos

This paper presents the impact of coating topography in piston ring-liner conjunction under mixed regime of lubrication using low viscosity oils. The study provides a time efficient analytical model including mixed-hydrodynamics regime of lubrication under different contact conditions. The method modified the expressions of the contact load and area of Greenwood-Tripp model in order to capture the real asperities interaction into contact. The model represents the tribological behavior of a thin top ring at Top Dead Centre, where boundary and mixed conditions are predominant. Electroplated CrN and PVD TiN coated rings were studied to predict the ring friction. The results are compared with an uncoated steel ring. The CrN coating shows slighter coefficient of friction, due to the coating morphology and roughness parameters. The TiN coating presents thicker lubricant films and higher coefficient of friction because the surface topography is quite rough with high peaks. This can be explained because of the major contribution of the roughness parameter and asperity slope in the boundary friction prediction.


Author(s):  
José Ramón Serrano ◽  
Francisco José Arnau ◽  
Luis Miguel García-Cuevas ◽  
Alejandro Gómez-Vilanova ◽  
Stephane Guilain ◽  
...  

Abstract Turbocharged engines are the standard architecture for designing efficient spark ignition and compression ignition reciprocating internal combustion engines (ICE). Turbochargers characterization and modeling are basic tasks for the analysis and prediction of the whole engine system performance and this information is needed in quite early stages of the engine design. Turbocharger characteristics (efficiency, pressure ratio, mass flow rates...) traditionally rely in maps of pseudo non-dimensional variables called reduced variables. These maps must be used by reciprocating ICE designer and modeler not only for benchmarking of the turbocharger, but for a multiplicity of purposes, i.e: assessing engine back-pressure, boost pressure, load transient response, after-treatment inlet temperature, intercooler inlet temperature, low pressure EGR temperature, ... Maps of reduced variables are measured in gas-stands with steady flow but non-standardized fluids conditioning; neither temperatures nor flows. In concrete: turbine inlet gas temperature; lubrication-oil flow and temperature; water-cooling flow and turbo-machinery external heat transfer are non-standardized variables which have a big impact in assessing said multiplicity of purposes. Moreover, adiabatic efficiency, heat losses and friction losses are important data, hidden in the maps of reduced variables, which depend on the testing conditions as much as on the auxiliary fluids temperature and flow rate. In this work it is proposed a methodology to standardize turbochargers testing based in measuring the maps twice: in close to adiabatic and in diathermal conditions. Along the paper it is discussed with special detail the impact of the procedure followed to achieve said quasi-adiabatic conditions in both the energy balance of the turbocharger and the testing complexity. As a conclusion, the paper proposes a methodology which combines quasi-adiabatic tests (cold and hot gas flow) with diathermal tests (hot gas flow) in order to extract from a turbocharger gas-stand all information needed by engine designers interested in controlling or 1D-modelling the ICE. The methodology is completed with a guide for calibrating said control-oriented turbocharger models in order to separate aerodynamic efficiency (adiabatic) from heat transfer losses and from friction losses in the analysis of the turbocharger performance. The outsourced calibration of the turbocharger model allows avoiding uncertainties in the global ICE model calibration, what is very interesting for turbochargers benchmarking at early ICE-turbo matching stages or for global system analysis at early control design stages.


Author(s):  
H. Xu ◽  
M. D. Bryant ◽  
R. D. Matthews ◽  
T. M. Kiehne ◽  
B. D. Steenwyk ◽  
...  

This paper presents two piston ring and cylinder liner lubrication models and compares the friction predictions against the experimental results from a corresponding bench test. The first model aims to solve the average Reynolds equation with corrective flow factors, which describe the influence of surface irregularities on the lubricant flow under mixed lubrication condition. The second model takes account of the lubricant film rupture and cavitation. Meanwhile, a stochastic rough contact sub-model quantifies the relation between contact pressure and mean surface separation in both cases. Numerical results on the top compression ring simulation show that both models capture hydrodynamic, mixed, and boundary lubrication regimes, which depend on the real surface topographies of the piston ring and the cylinder liner. Whenever hydrodynamic action is insufficient to maintain the equilibrium position of the ring, the restoring force will be augmented by multi-asperity contacts lubricated by a thin boundary film. Total friction will originate mainly from shearing of viscous lubricant and shearing of asperity conjunctions. The purpose of this modeling effort is to compare both lubrication models to data from an experimental test-rig. This test rig eliminates many of the factors that can make analysis of predictions for real engine operating conditions difficult.


2019 ◽  
pp. 146808741987211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tongyang Li ◽  
Xuan Ma ◽  
Xiqun Lu ◽  
Chuanjuan Wang ◽  
Bowen Jiao ◽  
...  

The piston ring is one of the most important parts of a two-stroke marine diesel engine. It is lubricated by a special mode in which the lubricating oil is directly injected into the liner’s inner surface. In this article, taking account of the oil supply, a piston ring lubrication model is developed based on oil mass conservation. The lubrication region of this piston ring–cylinder liner is divided into inlet, core lubrication, and outlet regions, with the oil supply being converted into an oil film. The impact of the width of the core lubrication region on squeezing of the oil is considered. To verify the model, friction force measurements are performed in a reciprocating bench test under fully flooded conditions, and the model is further validated by comparing the minimum oil film thickness with data from the literature. The model is applied to the top ring of a two-stroke marine diesel engine, and the impacts of the oil supply and its design parameters are analyzed.


1977 ◽  
Vol 191 (1) ◽  
pp. 241-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. E. Willn ◽  
P. S. Brett

A mechanical test rig and a single-cylinder test engine have teen used to study the influence of lubricants, materials, and surface finish, in relation to scuffing failure of piston rings and cylinder bores. Good correlation between the mechanical rig and the engine was demonstrated when scuffing performance in the two devices was rated in terms of a factor involving contact pressure and sliding velocity. With the many features investigated, a wide range of results was obtained, and the work has thereby brought attention to various modifications which can be made in order to alleviate problems of scuffing which can occur particularly during engine “break-in”.


Author(s):  
Jeffrey Jocsak ◽  
Eduardo Tomanik ◽  
Victor W. Wong ◽  
Tian Tian

This paper presents an investigation into the characterization and performance prediction of different cylinder liner surfaces commonly used in modern internal combustion engines. The topography of liner specimens was measured, and the friction and wear between a piston ring and each liner surface was measured using a horizontal reciprocating bench tester. The load, speed, and lubricant supply during testing were chosen to ensure that the piston ring and liner operated primarily in a mixed lubrication regime. A computer program was developed to model the performance of the piston ring and liner specimens under the conditions observed during the reciprocating bench test. The Greenwood and Tripp statistical asperity contact model was employed to describe the rough surface contact behavior between the liner specimen and piston ring. Two different methods of characterizing the liner specimen surface roughness and determining the inputs required for the Greenwood and Tripp model from the surface measurements were considered. The friction observed experimentally was compared to the friction predicted by the model, and the ability of the model to predict the absolute friction for a given surface and the relative difference in friction between two different surfaces was investigated.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 779
Author(s):  
Dimitrios Dardalis ◽  
Amiyo Basu ◽  
Matt J. Hall ◽  
Ronald D. Mattthews

The Rotating Liner Engine (RLE) concept is a design concept for internal combustion engines, where the cylinder liner rotates at a surface speed of 2–4 m/s in order to assist piston ring lubrication. Specifically, we have evidence from prior art and from our own research that the above rotation has the potential to eliminate the metal-to-metal contact/boundary friction that exists close to the piston reversal areas. This frictional source becomes a significant energy loss, especially in the compression/expansion part of the cycle, when the gas pressure that loads the piston rings and skirts is high. This paper describes the Diesel RLE prototype constructed from a Cummins 4BT and the preliminary observations from initial low load testing. The critical technical challenge, namely the rotating liner face seal, appears to be operating with negligible gas leakage and within the hydrodynamic lubrication regime for the loads tested (peak cylinder pressures of the order of 100 bar) and up to about 10 bar BMEP (brake mean effective pressure). Preliminary testing has proven that the metal-to-metal contact in the piston assembly mostly vanished, and a friction reduction at idle conditions of about 40% as extrapolated to a complete engine has taken place. It is expected that as the speed increases, the friction reduction percentage will diminish, but as the load increases, the friction reduction will increase. The fuel economy benefit over the US Heavy-Duty driving cycle will likely be of the order of 10% compared to a standard engine.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 4722
Author(s):  
Botan Wang ◽  
Xiaolong Chen ◽  
Yi Wang ◽  
Dong Han ◽  
Baohong Guo ◽  
...  

This work reports the latest observations on the behavior of two Multigap Resistive Plate Chambers (MRPC) under wide high-luminosity exposures, which motivate the development and in-beam test of the sealed MRPC prototype assembled with low-resistive glass. The operation currently being monitored, together with previous simulation results, shows the impact of gas pollution caused by avalanches in gas gaps, and the necessity to shrink the gas-streaming volume. With the lateral edge of the detector sealed by a 3D-printed frame, a reduced gas-streaming volume of ~170 mL has been achieved for a direct gas flow to the active area. A high-rate test of the sealed MRPC prototype shows that, ensuring a 97% efficiency and 70 ps time resolution, the sealed design results in a stable operation current behavior at a counting rate of 3–5 kHz/cm2. The sealed MRPC will become a potential solution for future high luminosity applications.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document