Traction studies of piston ring wear using an external radiometric method with proton activation

Abstract

A method and results are presented of traction studies of piston ring wear in a Polski Fiat 126p passenger car and Star 200 lorry. The rings sliding surface was activated with a beam of 9.6-MeV protons and the measurements were made using a collimated scintillation detector placed outside the engine, i.e. without interfering with the engine's operation. The cars were run under varying traction conditions, their mileages having ranged between 7000 and 12000 km. In stable wear conditions on the road the piston ring wear for the passenger car and the lorry was 0.28% 100 km and 0.045% 100 km, respectively. The method was found to be particularly suitable for traction studies because it is simple and cheap. It can be employed as early as after the first 100 km of the car mileage.