Modeling of contact between liner finish and piston ring in internal combustion engines based on 3D measured surface

Abstract

When decreasing of fossil fuel supplies and air pollution are two major society problems in the 21st century, rapid growth of internal combustion (IC) engines serves as a main producer of these two problems. In order to increase fuel efficiency, mechanical loss should be controlled in internal combustion engines. Interaction between piston ring pack and cylinder liner finish accounts for nearly 20 percent of the mechanical losses within an internal combustion engine, and is an important factor that affects the lubricant oil consumption. Among the total friction between piston ring pack and cylinder liner, boundary friction occurs when piston is at low speed and there is direct contact between rings and liners. This work focuses on prediction of contact between piston ring and liner finish based on 3D measured surface and different methods are compared. In previous twin-land oil control ring (TLOCR) deterministic model, Greenwood-Tripp correlation function was used to determine contact. The practical challenge for this single equation is that real plateau roughness makes it unreliable. As a result, micro geometry of liner surface needs to be obtained through white light interferometry device or confocal equipment to conduct contact model. Based on real geometry of liner finish and the assumption that ring surface is ideally smooth, contact can be predicted by three different models which were developed by using statistical Greenwood-Williamson model, Hertzian contact and revised deterministic dry contact model by Professor A.A. Lubrecht. The predicted contact between liner finish and piston ring is then combined with hydrodynamic pressure caused by lubricant which was examined using TLOCR deterministic model by Chen. et al to get total friction resulted on the surface of liner finish. Finally, contact model is used to examine friction of different liners in an actual engine running cycle.