An experimental and numerical investigation of frictional losses and film thickness for four cylinder liner variants for a heavy duty diesel engine

The piston ring pack is the single greatest contributor to mechanical losses in a heavy duty diesel engine, accounting for 1.1–6.8% of the total losses. Therefore, the piston ring-cylinder liner contact is potentially the most rewarding area to study when attempting to reduce mechanical losses in a heavy duty diesel engine. In this work, four different heavy duty diesel engine cylinder liner variants have been tested to evaluate the lubricating conditions that occur when a section of top compression ring is reciprocated against them in a lubricated environment. Two of the cylinder liners were traditional grey cast iron and plateau honed with different honing angles, one had ANS Triboconditioning® applied and the last was plasma sprayed with a stainless steel and ceramic coating, then honed. An experimental test rig was used where friction and film thickness was recorded, by means of an ultrasonic technique. A numerical model was also developed to calculate the friction and film thickness. Comparisons are made between the simulation and experiment, and the four cylinder liner variants are also evaluated. It was found that both simulation and experiment could differentiate between all surfaces and the results from the model and experiment also correlated well with each other. A lower plateau average surface roughness, as exhibited by the ANS Triboconditioning® and plasma liners, led to a significant reduction in friction.