Experimental investigation on effects of positive texturing on friction and wear reduction of piston ring/cylinder liner system

Abstract

It has been observed that well designed parameters of surface texturing can enhance the tribological performance of lubricated surfaces under relative sliding motion. These micro-features develop hydrodynamic lift at the interface of sliding surfaces. These textures can be positive (protruded out of surface) and negative (recessed out of surface). This paper focused on the effects of positive texturing on reduction of friction and wear of piston ring/ cylinder liner (PR/CL) system under lubricated conditions by providing rotary sliding motion between textured ring and un-textured liner surfaces. The square shaped textures of different heights were produced by photo chemical etching method. The experiments were conducted on pin on disc friction and wear test rig to determine the effects of load, sliding speed and texture geometric parameters including texture height and area density. From the results obtained, it is reported that there existed a set of optimal parameters of texture height, area density, normal load and sliding speed to obtain reduction in friction and wear of PR/CL system.The maximum reductions in friction and wear rate were observed with the textured patternsat an optimal height and area density of 25 µm and 10% respectively.