The effect of cylinder liner surface topography on abrasive wear of piston–cylinder assembly in combustion engine

Reciprocating piston engines are the major propulsion devices for light aircrafts, helicopters and mostly all automotive vehicles. They are expected to fulfill the present and future strains on the engine performance and durability including fuel economy and exhaust emission legislation. One of the key issues for these demands is the limitation of thermomechanical internal losses, wear, and lubricating oil consumption. Such phenomena are conditioned all together by tribological behavior of a piston–cylinder assembly. Apart from various advanced technologies, a conventional plateau-honing operation is still the standard technology for shaping cylinder liner surface microstructure. This paper describes the distinctions between piston–cylinder assembly wear of the engines varied by cylinder liner roughness parameters due to different honing settings made. Research was performed on the test-bed where the wear was forced by grinding flour precisely dosed into the engine inlet manifold. After 10 h of running-in operation the high correlation of the maximum valley depth of the profile Rv with the piston–cylinder assembly wear was noticed. After 21 h of full load operation a similar strong relationship, but referring to the maximum peak height of the cylinder liner profile Rp occurred as well. Both these parameters have a physical interpretation on a surface material ratio diagram, where Rv corresponds to the material fraction of the surface layer, and Rp – to the oil retention volume.