Mean pressure of a finite width oil control ring with randomly spaced grooves

Abstract

The current paper studies the pressure generated between two parallel grooved surfaces, as occurs in the oil control ring in internal combustion engines. It is shown that the pressure generated depends significantly on the position of the groove intersections, and thus that a single calculation cannot describe the pressure generated during a full passage of the ring over the pattern. Furthermore, it is shown that the introduction of a groove distance variation reduces the pressure variation, but does not affect the mean pressure generated.