Optimizing the tribological performance of textured piston ring–liner contact for reduced frictional losses in SI engine: Warm operating conditions

2016 ◽  
Vol 99 ◽  
pp. 224-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Usman ◽  
Cheol Woo Park
Author(s):  
Peter M. Lee ◽  
M. Priest ◽  
M. S. Stark ◽  
J. J. Wilkinson ◽  
J. R. Lindsay-Smith ◽  
...  

With increasing pressure on engine oil manufacturers to extend oil drain intervals and reduce fuel consumption, whilst changing the composition of fully formulated oils to meet the new CEC, ILSAC and OEM specifications, there is an ever increasing need to understand the effect of oil degradation on the operating conditions and tribological performance of engines [1]. This work samples oil from the rear of the top piston ring of an engine during the first 15 minutes from cold start and operating at steady state under three different loads. These samples, used 40 hour sump oil and fresh oil have been subjected to tribological tests and chemical analysis.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 5513-5527
Author(s):  
J. W. Tee ◽  
S. H. Hamdan ◽  
W. W. F. Chong

Fundamental understanding of piston ring-pack lubrication is essential in reducing engine friction. This is because a substantial portion of engine frictional losses come from piston-ring assembly. Hence, this study investigates the tribological impact of different piston ring profiles towards engine in-cylinder friction. Mathematical models are derived from Reynolds equation by using Reynolds’ boundary conditions to generate the contact pressure distribution along the complete piston ring-pack/liner conjunction. The predicted minimum film thickness is then used to predict the friction generated between the piston ring-pack and the engine cylinder liner. The engine in-cylinder friction is predicted using Greenwood and Williamson’s rough surface contact model. The model considers both the boundary friction and the viscous friction components. These mathematical models are integrated to simulate the total engine in-cylinder friction originating from the studied piston ring-pack for a complete engine cycle. The predicted minimum film thickness and frictional properties from the current models are shown to correlate reasonably with the published data. Hence, the proposed mathematical approach prepares a simplistic platform in predicting frictional losses of piston ring-pack/liner conjunction, allowing for an improved fundamental understanding of the parasitic losses in an internal combustion engine.


1968 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-48
Author(s):  
H. U. Wisniowski ◽  
D. R. Jackson

A simple, inexpensive, and rapid method of assessing cylinder and piston ring wear was developed. A small sample of the oil which lubricates the cylinder wall and piston rings was drawn off through a small hole in the cylinder wall. The sample was then analyzed spectrographically. Changes in wear resulting from changes in cylinder liner materials, fuels, lubricating oils, and other operating conditions were investigated. The method was found useful especially in cases of drastic differences in the wear rates. Selected examples of these studies are reported.


2017 ◽  
Vol 170 (3) ◽  
pp. 66-72
Author(s):  
Jerzy MERKISZ ◽  
Łukasz RYMANIAK

The article discusses the possibility of determining the environmental indicators for vehicles of different categories in relation to CO2 emissions. These are called toxicity indicators because they concern the compounds: CO, THC and NOx. Three Euro V compliant vehicles with different propulsion systems types were used for the study: a 0.9 dm3 urban passenger car with a SI engine and a start-stop system, a 2.5 dm3 off-road vehicle with a CI engine, and a city bus with a hybrid drive system in series configuration and a CI engine with a displacement of 6.7 dm3. Measurements were made in actual operating conditions in the Poznan agglomeration using a portable emissions measurement system (PEMS). The paper presents the characteristics of the operating time shares of vehicles and propulsion systems as well as CO2 emissions depending on the engine load and crankshaft rotational speed for individual vehicles. The determined toxicity indicators allowed to indicate their usefulness, to make comparisons between tested vehicles, and to identify directions for further work on the application and interpretation of these indicators.


Author(s):  
Yang Hu ◽  
Xianghui Meng ◽  
Youbai Xie ◽  
Jiazheng Fan

The cylinder liner surface finish, which is commonly produced using the honing technique, is an essential factor of engine performance. The characteristics of the texture features, including the cross-hatch angle, the plateau roughness and the groove depth, significantly affect the performance of the ring pack–cylinder liner system. However, due to the influence of the honed texture features, the surface roughness of the liner is not subject to Gaussian distribution. To simulate the mixed lubrication performance of the ring–liner system with non-Gaussian roughness, the combination of a two-scale homogenization technique and a deterministic asperities contact method is adopted. In this study, a one-dimensional homogenized mixed lubrication model is established to study the influence of groove parameters on the load-carrying capacity and the frictional performance of the piston ring–liner system. The ring profile, plateau roughness, and operating conditions are taken into consideration. The main findings are that for nonflat ring, shallow and wide groove textures are beneficial for friction reduction, and there exists an optimum groove density that makes the friction minimum; for flat ring, wide and sparse grooves help improving the tribological performance, and there exists an optimum groove depth that makes the friction minimum.


Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 1566 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.D. Martinez-Boggio ◽  
S.S. Merola ◽  
P. Teixeira Lacava ◽  
A. Irimescu ◽  
P.L. Curto-Risso

To mitigate the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, energy production processes must change from fossil to renewable resources. Bioenergy utilization from agricultural residues can be a step towards achieving this goal. Syngas (fuel obtained from biomass gasification) has been proved to have the potential of replacing fossil fuels in stationary internal combustion engines (ICEs). The processes associated with switching from traditional fuels to alternatives have always led to intense research efforts in order to have a broad understanding of the behavior of the engine in all operating conditions. In particular, attention needs to be focused on fuels containing relatively high concentrations of hydrogen, due to its faster propagation speed with respect to traditional fossil energy sources. Therefore, a combustion study was performed in a research optical SI engine, for a comparison between a well-established fuel such as methane (the main component of natural gas) and syngas. The main goal of this work is to study the effect of inert gases in the fuel mixture and that of air dilution during lean fuelling. Thus, two pure syngas blends (mixtures of CO and H2) and their respective diluted mixtures (CO and H2 with 50vol% of inert gases, CO2 and N2) were tested in several air-fuel ratios (stoichiometric to lean burn conditions). Initially, the combustion process was studied in detail by traditional thermodynamic analysis and then optical diagnostics were applied thanks to the optical access through the piston crown. Specifically, images were taken in the UV-visible spectrum of the entire cycle to follow the propagation of the flame front. The results show that hydrogen promotes flame propagation and reduces its distortion, as well as resulting in flames evolving closer to the spark plug. All syngas blends show a stable combustion process, even in conditions of high air and fuel dilution. In the leanest case, real syngas mixtures present a decrease in terms of performance due to significant reduction in volumetric efficiency. However, this condition strongly decreases pollutant emissions, with nitrogen oxide (NOx) concentrations almost negligible.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (9) ◽  
pp. 1647-1661 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristiana Delprete ◽  
Abbas Razavykia ◽  
Paolo Baldissera

This article presents a detailed analytical model to evaluate piston skirt tribology under hydrodynamic lubrication. The contribution of the piston ring pack lubrication has been taken into account to study piston secondary motion and tribological performance. A system of nonlinear equations comprising Reynolds equation and force equilibrium is solved to calculate piston ring pack friction force and its moment about wrist pin axis. Instantaneous minimum oil film thickness at piston ring/liner interface has been estimated considering different boundary conditions: full Sommerfeld, oil separation, and Reynolds cavitation and reformation. The ring pack model has capability to be used for a wide range of ring face profiles under boundary and hydrodynamic lubrication. Piston secondary motion is evaluated using lubrication theory and equilibrium of forces and moments, to examine the effect of wrist pin location, piston skirt/liner clearance, and oil rheology. Numerical method and finite difference scheme have been used to define piston eccentricity and hydrodynamic pressure acting over the skirt.


2020 ◽  
Vol 143 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Avinash Kumar Agarwal ◽  
Deepak Agarwal

Abstract This study investigated the use of biodiesel (B100) and baseline mineral diesel in two identical unmodified vehicles to realistically assess different aspects of biodiesel’s compatibility and durability issues with modern common rail direct injection (CRDI) engine-powered vehicles. Two identical vehicles were operated for 30,000 km under identical operating conditions during a field-trial using biodiesel (B100) and mineral diesel. Exhaustive experimental results from this series of tests are divided into four sections, and this is the third paper of this series of four papers, which covers comparative feasibility and wear analyses, underlining the effect of long-term use of biodiesel on wear of cylinder liner and piston rings compared to baseline mineral diesel-fueled vehicle. Surface microstructures at three locations of the cylinder liner were evaluated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Wear was found to be relatively lower at all locations of liners from biodiesel-fueled vehicle compared to diesel-fueled vehicle. Surface roughness of cylinder liners measured at different locations showed that it reduced by ∼30–40% at top dead center (TDC), ∼10–20% at mid-stroke, and ∼20–30% at bottom dead center (BDC) for both vehicles, showing higher wear close to TDC compared to mid-stroke and BDC locations. Loss of piston-ring weight was significantly lower for biodiesel-fueled vehicle. Engine tear-down observations and carbon deposits on various engine components were recorded after the conclusion of the field trials. During these field-trials, engine durability-related issues such as fuel-filter plugging, injector coking, piston-ring sticking, carbon deposits in the combustion chamber, and contamination of lubricating oils were found to be relatively lower in biodiesel-fueled vehicle. Overall, no noticeable durability issues were recorded because of the use of biodiesel in CRDI engine-powered vehicle.


Author(s):  
Brian T. Reese ◽  
Yann G. Guezennec ◽  
Miodrag Oljaca

A novel fuel atomization device (Nanomiser™) was evaluated under laboratory conditions with respect to its ability to reduce SI engine cold-start hydrocarbon emissions. First, comparisons between the level of atomization using the conventional, pintle-type fuel injector and the novel atomizer were carried out using flow visualization in a spray chamber and particle size distribution. The novel atomizer is capable of producing sub-micron fuel droplets, which form an ultra-fine mist with outstanding non-wetting characteristics. To capitalize on these atomization characteristics, this device was compared to a conventional fuel injector in a small, two-cylinder, SI engine under a number of operating conditions. Results show a slightly enhanced combustion quality and lean limit under warm operating conditions and a dramatic reduction in unburned HC emission under cold operating conditions, with cold emissions with the Nanomiser™ matching those with a conventional injector under fully warm conditions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 515-524 ◽  
Author(s):  
Venkateswara Babu P. ◽  
Ismail Syed ◽  
Satish Ben Beera

Purpose In an internal combustion engine, piston ring-cylinder liner tribo pair is one among the most critical rubbing pairs. Most of the energy produced by an internal combustion engine is dissipated as frictional losses of which major portion is contributed by the piston ring-cylinder liner tribo pair. Hence, proper design of tribological parameters of piston ring-cylinder liner pair is essential and can effectively reduce the friction and wear, thereby improving the tribological performance of the engine. This paper aims to use surface texturing, an effective and feasible method, to improve the tribological performance of piston ring-cylinder liner tribo pair. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, influence of positive texturing (protruding) on friction reduction and wear resistance of piston ring surfaces was studied. The square-shaped positive textures were fabricated on piston ring surface by chemical etching method, and the experiments were conducted with textured piston ring surfaces against un-textured cylinder liner surface on pin-on-disc apparatus by continuous supply of lubricant at the inlet of contact zone. The parameters varied in this study are area density and normal load at a constant sliding speed. A comparison was made between the tribological properties of textured and un-textured piston ring surfaces. Findings From the experimental results, the tribological performance of the textured piston ring-cylinder liner tribo pair was significantly improved over a un-textured tribo pair. A maximum friction reduction of 67.6 per cent and wear resistance of 81.6 per cent were observed with textured ring surfaces as compared to un-textured ring surfaces. Originality/value This experimental study is helpful for better understanding of the potency of positive texturing on friction reduction and wear resistance of piston ring-cylinder liner tribo pair under lubricated sliding conditions.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document