Applied Acoustics 102 (2016) 40–48

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Acoustics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apacoust

Piston scuffing fault and its identification in an IC engine by vibration

analysis
Ashkan Moosavian a,b, G. Najafi a,⇑, Barat Ghobadian a, Mostafa Mirsalim b,
Seyed Mohammad Jafari b, Peyman Sharghi b
a
Biosystems Engineering Department, Tarbiat Modares University (TMU), Jalale-E-Aleahmad Highway, Tehran, Iran
b
Workshops, Engine and Vehicle Labs Unit, Irankhodro Powertrain Company (IPCO), Tehran, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this paper, the effects of piston scuffing fault on engine performance and vibrations are investigated. A
Received 4 April 2015 procedure based on vibration analysis is also presented to identify piston scuffing fault. To this end, an
Received in revised form 15 August 2015 internal combustion (IC) engine ran under a specific test procedure. The engine parameters and vibration
Accepted 7 September 2015
signals were measured during the experiments. To produce piston scuffing fault, three-body abrasive
Available online 25 September 2015
wear mechanism was employed. The experimental results showed that piston scuffing fault caused the
engine performance to reduce significantly. The vibration signals were analyzed in time-domain,
Keywords:
frequency-domain and time–frequency domain. Continuous wavelet transform (CWT) was used to obtain
Piston scuffing fault
Engine
time–frequency representations. ‘‘dmey” wavelet was selected as the optimum wavelet type for this
Vibration analysis research among different wavelet types using the three criteria of energy, Shannon entropy and energy
Continuous wavelet transform to Shannon entropy ratio. The results of CWT analysis by ‘‘dmey” wavelet showed that piston scuffing
Fault diagnosis fault excited the frequency band of 2.4–4.7 kHz in which the frequency of 3.7 kHz was affected more.
Three-body abrasive wear mechanism Finally, seven different features were extracted from the engine vibration signals related to the frequency
band of 2.4–4.7 kHz. The results indicated that maximum, mean, RMS, skewness, kurtosis and impulse
factor of the engine vibration related to the found frequency band increased significantly due to piston
scuffing fault. The obtained results showed that the proposed method identified piston scuffing fault
and discovered the vibration characteristics of this fault like frequency band. The results also demon-
strated the possibility of using engine vibrations in piston scuffing fault identification.
Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Scuffing is gross damage in which local welds are formed
between the sliding surfaces [1]. When two sliding metallic sur-
faces contact and rub to each other, the friction and temperature
of the area between these surfaces increase dramatically. High
temperature in contact area and also the existence of structural
weakness which could happen during production process cause
the deterioration of the material strength [2]. Due to contact stres-
ses acted to the sliding surfaces, plastic deformation occurs in
materials, plastic flows are activated in layer and sub-layers, and
materials go into liquid–solid phase [2]. As the result of reciprocat-
ing sliding and generation of adhesion forces, softened materials
detach from the surface and stick to the opposite surface, means
mutual material transfer occurs. In this situation, some chemical
⇑ Corresponding author at: P.O. Box: 14115-111, Iran. Tel.: +98 21 48292322; fax:
+98 21 48292200.
E-mail address: g.najafi@modares.ac.ir (G. Najafi).
interactions take place between the stuck materials in the presence
of lubricant [2,3]. The result of this process is formation of harder
and rougher layers on the two sliding surfaces. If the contact
between the sliding surfaces continues, the described process will
progress with an increasing rate. Scuffing fault could occur in all
sliding mechanisms such as gears and piston/cylinder.
When scuffing fault occurs in the piston and cylinder of an
engine, it is called piston scuffing fault. This fault is among the
main piston failures in both spark-ignition (SI) and compression-
ignition (CI) engines which is a result of wear mechanism. There
are three important wear mechanisms namely corrosion, abrasion
and adhesion [4]. Abrasion occurs during the running-in period of
engine which is a dominant wear mechanism for piston/cylinder
system. Abrasive wear is damage to a component surface caused
by the motion of a harder surface or hard particles trapped at the
interface. There are two types of abrasive wear, namely, two-
body and three-body abrasive wear. Two-body abrasion takes
place when a hard surface slides on a softer counter surface. When
wear is produced by free hard particles trapped at the area

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apacoust.2015.09.002
0003-682X/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 A. Moosavian et al. / Applied Acoustics 102 (2016) 40–48
between the two sliding surfaces, this mechanism is called three-
body abrasion [5]. Piston scuffing could occur due to both types
of abrasive wear. Many factors are involved in piston scuffing phe-
nomenon like temperature [6,7], lubricant film [3], friction [2],
clearance [6], thermal expansion [6], piston secondary motion
[7], operating condition [3] and material properties [2,6].
Piston scuffing causes the surfaces of piston and cylinder to
destroy. Due to this fault, the clearance between the piston and
cylinder increases that leads the removal of standard engine seal-
ing. Therefore, combustion gases could easily reach crankcase area.
This occurrence causes a reduction in engine performance and
increase in engine emission. If the severity of piston scuffing fault
is more, its destructive effects on engine will be greater. In this sit-
uation, engine must be overhauled that is indeed costly. No certain
way has been proposed yet to prevent completely the occurrence
of piston scuffing fault, means this fault might happen in any types
of engine. So piston scuffing fault always limits engine designs. In
this research area, a lot of studies have been conducted in the field
of metallurgical investigations and proposition of procedures to
reduce the probability of piston scuffing occurrence. These investi-
gations have been carried out with the purpose of preventing pis-
ton scuffing fault. Coating technology is one of the most effective
ways which has been proposed to encounter piston scuffing fault.
In literature, there are some papers which have compared the per-
formances of different coatings against piston scuffing. As an
example, Ye et al. [2] have experimentally surveyed piston scuffing
mechanism. The resistance of pistons with A390 type aluminum
alloy without/with different coatings against scuffing mechanism
have been studied. The used coatings have included a nickel–phos-
phorus plated coating with 4 vol.% boron nitride particles (NCC), a
tin plating, and a polyamideimide-based CPC with about 15 vol.%
graphite particles (D-10). They have investigated the effects of pis-
ton skirt and cylinder hardness on piston scuffing phenomenon
using morphology features. Wang et al. [3] have also investigated
the resistance of different piston coatings against scuffing fault.
The experimental studies have included three coatings with two
hardness of piston surface against cast iron cylinder liner and three
aluminum alloy cylinder bores. They have mentioned that contact
area, mechanical and chemical properties of cylinder material,
roughness of piston and coating surfaces are among the main
and effective factors against piston scuffing fault. Cho et al. [8] have
studied the effects of surface roughness and coatings on the tribo-
logical behavior of piston skirt surfaces. To study the effects of
roughness and coatings, three different surface roughness and
two graphite and diamond-like carbon (DLC) have been used. They
have showed that the friction coefficient of the graphite coating is
less than DLC coating, but DLC coating provides better tribological
performance.
Based on the destructive effects of piston scuffing fault and con-
stant probability of its occurrence, it is highly needed to develop
procedures for identifying this fault to early detection with the
purpose of preventing its progression and engine breakdown.
Now, the use of an engine parameter namely blow-by flow rate
is a common way to detect piston scuffing occurrence in engine
laboratories. In this method, a sharp increase in blow-by flow rate
is a probable indication of piston scuffing fault occurrence, because
blow-by gases could easily pass through the area between scuffed
piston and cylinder, and reach engine crankcase so the amount of
blow-by flow rate rises. However, this method has serious draw-
backs as follows:

Increase in blow-by flow rate is not always caused by piston
scuffing fault. Other events could cause this increase such as
abrupt engine speed rise or locating the gaps of compression
rings in front of each other. So the use of blow-by flow rate is
associated with an uncertainty.
41

Due to the compressible nature of blow-by gases, there is an
inertia in blow-by flow rate changes, means that increase in this
parameter is never simultaneous with piston scuffing occur-
rence and has a time delay. So this method is not quick enough,
and is not capable of using for detection of early stages of piston
scuffing fault.
In spite of the importance of piston scuffing fault in internal
combustion (IC) engines, only a few researchers have attempted
to propose other methods for its detection. As an example, Joshi
et al. [9] have proposed a method for detecting four different
engine conditions namely healthy, gasket failure, oil cooler failure
and piston scuff. They have used seventy eight engine parameters
such as brake power, coolant pressure and exhaust temperature for
fault diagnosis. In their paper, the severity of the studied piston
scuffing fault is not obvious. Also, the measurement of seventy
eight engine parameters needs some special sensors and equip-
ment which is very costly. Wakatsuki et al. [10] have presented a
system based on the temperature monitoring to detect scuffing
on the cylinder liner of a large two-stroke diesel engine. They have
used thermocouple type temperature sensors installed on the
cylinder liner surface for measuring temperature signals.
One of the most common and promising method in fault detec-
tion area is vibration analysis which is effectively used in engine
fault diagnosis [11–13]. Each mechanical systems have unique
vibration characteristics like frequency content. If a fault occurs
in the mechanical system, the vibration characteristics of the sys-
tem will change. In vibration analysis, these changes are found
using some methods like signal processing. Then, the changes are
attributed to that fault. In piston scuffing phenomenon, the contact
and rubbing of the piston and cylinder surfaces could cause vibra-
tion and noise [2]. Hence, the use of vibration analysis and obtain-
ing the vibration characteristics of piston scuffing fault could be a
proper way for detecting this fault in IC engines. The present study,
as a novel research, uses vibration analysis to identify piston scuff-
ing fault in an IC engine. The main objectives of this research are to
obtain the vibration characteristics of piston scuffing fault such as
frequency band caused by this fault, and also to propose a proce-
dure for its detection in IC engines. According to the literature,
these works have not been performed yet in the previous studies.
In the current research, an experiment for producing piston scuff-
ing fault was designed and carried out on a SI engine in an engine
test cell. During the experiments, different engine parameters and
also engine vibration were measured. In vibration analysis stage,
continuous wavelet transform (CWT) was employed which is an
effective tool in signal processing and fault detection field [14].
This was performed by examining different wavelet types. After-
ward, the best wavelet type for piston scuffing fault identification
was selected based on the three criteria of maximum energy [15],
minimum Shannon entropy [16] and maximum energy to Shannon
entropy ratio [14]. Then, the frequency band caused by piston
scuffing fault was found and the effects of this failure on the engine
vibration were obtained.
2. Experimental work
2.1. Experimental setup
In this research, the experiments were performed on an inline
four-cylinder spark-ignition (SI) engine. The engine specifications
are given in Table 1. A 190 kW Horiba-WT190 eddy-current
dynamometer was coupled with the engine to control the engine
speed and load. More than thirty equipment in conjunction with
different sensors were used to run and control the engine such as
engine speed, torque, throttle position, water temperature, oil
42 A. Moosavian et al. / Applied Acoustics 102 (2016) 40–48
Table 1
The technical specifications of the engine under study.
Engine type Gasoline 4-cylinder inline
Combustion order 1–3–4–2
Cylinder bore  stroke (mm) 78  85
Swept volume (L) 1.650
Max. power (kW/rpm) 83/6000
Max. torque (Nm/rpm) 146/3500–4500
Compression ratio 11.5
pressure, ambient temperature, crankcase pressure and exhaust
manifold temperature sensors. Four engine parameters, namely
rotational speed, torque, power and blow-by flow rate were cap-
tured during the experiments. The engine speed and torque were
measured with the accuracy of ±1% and ±0.5%, respectively. An
AVL 442 blow-by meter with the measuring range of 3–150 L/
min and accuracy of 1.5% was employed to measure the blow-by
flow rate of the engine.
In order to measure the vibration signals, a PCB accelerometer
type 357B11 was horizontally installed on the engine cylinder
block in front of the cylinder#3 liner. The accelerometer sensor
specification is given in Table 2. The vibration signals passed
through a Brüel & Kjær (B & K) NEXUS conditioning amplifier type
2692 low noise version with a high bandwidth which has compre-
hensive high and low-pass filtering facilities. To measure the in-
cylinder pressure signal, a Kistler measuring spark plug type
6117BFD15 and an AVL piezo amplifier type 3066A02 was used.
The pressure sensor was installed for cylinder#3. The data acquisi-
tion system consisted of an Advantech PCLD-8710 terminal board
and data acquisition card type PCI-1710. The signals were recorded
in a computer using MATLAB software. In this research, all signals
were sampled with a 50 kHz sampling frequency. Fig. 1 shows a
schematic and real experimental setup.
2.2. Test procedure
For the experiments of the present study, the test plan shown in
Table 3 was used. As it can be seen, this test procedure includes
five steps. Note that the engine was set from idle to rated power
speed in an acceleration time of less than 15 s.
During the experiments, the vibration signal, in-cylinder pres-
sure and engine parameters were measured. After each test, an
oil sample was taken from the engine.
In the first experiment (Test#1), the test program given in
Table 3 was carried out on the engine in healthy condition. The
engine health was confirmed before the experiment by checking
its different components. An endoscope was used in order to verify
the health of the engine cylinders. As an example, Fig. 2(a) shows
an endoscope image of cylinder#3 in healthy condition. After per-
forming the first experiment, an oil sample was taken from the
engine. All data obtained in the first experiment, was employed
as reference data for further analyses.
In the current research, three-body abrasion was studied
because this is the main wear mechanism in piston/cylinder
Table 2
The specification of the used accelerometer sensor.
Sensitivity (±10%)
Frequency range (+10%)
Measurement range
Temperature range
Weight
Dimension
system [5]. Thus, after implementing the first experiment, the fol-
lowing procedure was used to produce three-body abrasive wear
mechanism in the engine under study.
In the present study, silicon (Si) particles with diameter of 7–
200 lm were used as third body. Si particles are hard enough to
produce abrasive wear mechanism in piston/cylinder system. To
this end, 6 g Si powder was inserted into cylinder#3 through the
spark plug path. Afterward, a small amount of oil in atomized form
was splashed into cylinder#3 so that the silicon particles stick to
the cylinder wall. Before the experiment, the spread of Si powder
on all around of the cylinder wall was checked by the endoscope
(Fig. 2(b)). It is clearly observed from Fig. 2(b) that Si particles stick
to the cylinder wall and fill all honing grooves. This situation
causes a three-body abrasive wear mechanism in the area between
the piston and cylinder#3, and also provides necessary conditions
for piston scuffing fault occurrence. After inserting silicon powder
into cylinder#3 (Fig. 2(b)), the engine was tested according to the
test plan shown in Table 3. An oil sample was taken from the
engine after the second experiment (Test#2). In order to investi-
gate the cylinder condition, an endoscope image was taken from
cylinder#3 (Fig. 2(c)). The scuffing mark on the cylinder wall in pis-
ton movement direction is observed in Fig. 2(c).
After finishing the tests the engine disassembled for parts eval-
uation. Fig. 3 shows an image of piston and cylinder#3. In this fig-
ure, the scuffing marks on the piston and cylinder wall can be
observed.
The chemical composition of the piston and cylinder alloys is
provided in Table 4. Table 5 shows the results of oil analysis related
to the two performed experiments. As it can be seen, Al and Si
which are the main particles of the piston material, increased
highly in Test#2. Cu, Pb and Ni which are the other particles of
the piston alloy, increased as well. Moreover, Fe which is the main
particle of the cylinder material, was significantly raised. Hence,
the results of oil analysis confirm the piston scuffing occurrence
in the engine as shown in Fig. 3.
According to the above descriptions, scuffing fault occurred in
the piston and cylinder#3 in the second experiment. Hence, all
data collected in the second experiment is related to faulty condi-
tion of the engine i.e. scuffed piston and cylinder#3.
As mentioned previous, two engine conditions were studied in
the current research which are given in Table 6. From this table,
the term of ‘‘Healthy” represents the first experiment, whereas
the term of ‘‘Faulty” denotes the second experiment in which the
piston and cylinder#3 were suffered scuffing fault.
2.3. Experimental results
Fig. 4 illustrates the graphs of four engine parameters namely
speed, torque, power and blow-by flow rate during the two exper-
iments. As mentioned previous, the terms of ‘‘Healthy” and
‘‘Faulty” denote the first and second experiment, respectively. It
is observed from Fig. 4(b) and (c) that the engine torque and power
decreased by about 5.5 Nm and 3.5 kW respectively due to piston
scuffing fault. Moreover, it is seen from Fig. 4(d) that piston scuff-
ing fault caused the blow-by flow rate to increase highly so that the
amount of this parameter reached 128.7 L/min at the occurrence
time, whereas its maximum value was 33 L/min in healthy condi-
tion. This is because of increased clearance between piston and
cylinder due to scuffing fault which caused blow-by gases to pass
easier through this area and arrived the crankcase. This event can
0.31 pC/ms2
16 kHz
destructively affect engine parts such as crankshaft. Moreover,
±22,600 m/s2 pk engine emissions may be more and more dangerous because
71 to +288 °C blow-by gases mix with oil vapors and so more toxic substances
2g are produced. In general, it is seen that piston scuffing fault can
7.1  8.4 mm
negatively affect engine performance.
 A. Moosavian et al. / Applied Acoustics 102 (2016) 40–48 43

Engine

Dynamometer
Test stand

Measuring spark plug

In-cylinder pressure signal

Piezo amplifier
Vibraon signal

Terminal board

Condioning amplifier PC with

data acquision card

Accelerometer
An-Thrust side Thrust side

Fig. 1. The experimental setup and its schematic.

Table 3 between the signal x(t) and the mother wavelet at various scales
The used engine test plan. (parameter a), and different time positions (parameter b). The factor
Step Engine speed (rpm) Load (% of full load) Running time (s/min) a1/2 is employed for energy preservation. Eq. (1) shows that the
wavelet analysis is a time–frequency analysis or a time-scale anal-
1 Start/idle 0 <10 s
2 Rated power speed 100 <5 min ysis. The time and frequency segmentation are obtained by transla-
3 Idle 0 <20 s tion and scale of the analyzing wavelet. By enlarging scale, the
4 Stop 0 frequency resolution improves whereas the time resolution reduces
and vice versa [18].

4. Results and discussion

3. A brief description about continuous wavelet transform
(CWT)
The vibration signals for healthy and faulty engine conditions
are shown in Fig. 5. It is clearly observed that piston scuffing fault
Wavelet transform (WT) is one of the most widely used and
affected significantly the overall engine vibration so that the vibra-
popular methods in signal processing application, which has
tion amplitude increased substantially.
numerous potential in analyzing stationary signals as well as
To see more detailed scuffing effects on the engine vibration
non-stationary signals [11]. WT is capable of providing the time
and also find the frequency content caused by this fault, CWT
and frequency information simultaneously, by giving a time–fre-
was employed.
quency representation of the signal. This method produces a series
The selection of wavelet type is very important in wavelet
of functions called mother wavelets, having different frequencies
transform. This can significantly affect the performance of fault
to deal with transient signals in different time intervals [17].
diagnosis. In spite of trial and error method which has some disad-
Continuous wavelet transform of a signal x(t) is defined as [18]
vantages, there are several criteria to select the optimum wavelet
Z þ1  
tb type. These criteria are energy [15], Shannon entropy [16] and
Wða; bÞ ¼ a1=2 xðtÞw dt ð1Þ energy to Shannon entropy ratio [14].
1 a
In energy criterion, the wavelet whose coefficients have the
where w(t) is the mother wavelet which must be a function of zero maximum energy, is selected as the optimum wavelet type. The
R
average, means wðtÞdt ¼ 0. In Eq. (1), a and b denotes scale and energy of wavelet coefficients at each scale can be obtained by
translation, respectively. w*(t) is the complex conjugate of the X
m
scaled and shifted the mother wavelet w(t) [19]. The wavelet coef- EnergyðnÞ ¼ jC n;i j2 ð2Þ
ficient W(a,b) which is the result of CWT, measures the similarity i¼1
44 A. Moosavian et al. / Applied Acoustics 102 (2016) 40–48

Cylinder wall

(a) (b) (c)

Piston movement direction

Piston crown

Fig. 2. Endoscope images from cylinder#3 in different conditions: (a) healthy, (b) covered with Si particles and (c) scuffed.

(b) (a)

Fig. 3. Scuffing marks on: (a) piston, and (b) cylinder wall.

Table 4 Table 5
Chemical composition of the piston and cylinder alloys. Results of oil analysis for the two experiments.

Chemical composition (%) Engine component Particle Content (ppm)

Piston Cylinder Test#1 Test#2
Al Balance – Fe 18.6 36.8
Fe max. 0.7 Balance Al 2.8 15.2
Si 11.0–13.0 1.6–2.0 Si 5 18.6
Cu 2.5–4.0 – Cu 1.7 3.8
Mg 0.5–1.2 – Pb 2.7 21.8
Ni 1.75–3.0 – Ni 0.3 1.1
Mn max. 0.3 0.7–0.9
C – 2.8–3.4
P – max. 0.2 In Shannon entropy criterion, the wavelet whose coefficients
Ti max. 0.2 – result in the minimum Shannon entropy, is the optimum. The
Zn max. 0.3 – Shannon entropy of wavelet coefficients at each scale is defined as
S – max. 0.12
Cr, Pb, Sn, Ca Traces – X
m
Shannon EntropyðnÞ ¼  Pi  log Pi ð4Þ
i¼1
where m is the number of wavelet coefficients and Cn,i is the ith
where Pi is the distribution of the energy probability for each wave-
wavelet coefficient of nth scale. P
let coefficient with m i¼1 P i ¼ 1, given by
Total energy of wavelet coefficients for all scales is as follows
X XX jC n;i j2
Energytotal ¼ EnergyðnÞ ¼ jC n;i j2 ð3Þ Pi ¼ ð5Þ
n n i EnergyðnÞ
 A. Moosavian et al. / Applied Acoustics 102 (2016) 40–48 45

Table 6 2
Faulty
Definition of the studied engine conditions. Healthy

Amplitude (V)
1
Engine condition Cause Related test
Healthy Normal Test#1 0
Faulty Scuffing fault in piston and cylinder#3 Test#2
-1

-2
Total Shannon entropy of wavelet coefficients for all scales is as 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450
follows Time (s)
X
Fig. 5. Vibration signals of healthy and faulty conditions.
Shannon Entropytotal ¼ Shannon EntropyðnÞ ð6Þ
n

In energy to Shannon entropy ratio criterion, if the coefficients
of a wavelet give the maximum amount of energy to Shannon
entropy ratio, that wavelet is selected as the optimum wavelet
type. The energy to Shannon entropy ratio of wavelet coefficients
at each scale is given by
EnergyðnÞ
fðnÞ ¼
Shannon EntropyðnÞ
Total energy to Shannon entropy ratio of wavelet coefficients
for all scales is obtained by
X Fig. 8 illustrates the engine vibration signal in faulty condition
ftotal ¼ fðnÞ
n
In the present study, every three mentioned criteria were
employed to select the optimum wavelet type for piston scuffing
fault identification. To this end, the faulty vibration signal was con-
sidered and the amounts of the three criteria for some wavelets
were obtained. Then, the obtained amounts for all wavelets were
compared. It is noted that eight decomposition levels i.e. 256 scales
were used in the current research in order to cover all frequency
contents available in the engine vibrations. The comparison results
showed that ‘‘dmey” wavelet is the optimum wavelet type for the
current research. Fig. 6 illustrates a sample of comparison between
the amounts of the three criteria for five wavelet types. It is
observed that ‘‘dmey” wavelet gave the maximum energy,
minimum Shannon entropy and maximum energy to Shannon
entropy. Therefore, ‘‘dmey” wavelet with eight decomposition
levels was used for analyzing the engine vibration signals. In
below, the obtained results based on ‘‘dmey” wavelet and eight
decomposition levels are presented.
Fig. 7 shows the engine vibration signal in healthy condition
ð7Þ with its frequency spectrum and time–frequency representation.
In Fig. 7(a), in-cylinder pressure signal for cylinder#3 is also given.
Note that the illustrated signals are related to two operating cycle
of the engine.
ð8Þ with its frequency spectrum and time–frequency representation.
In-cylinder pressure signal for cylinder#3 is also presented in
Fig. 8(a). The illustrated signals are related to two operating cycle
of the engine. From Fig. 8, piston scuffing fault shown in Fig. 3,
increased significantly the engine vibration. According to Fig. 8
(b) and (c), this fault excited the frequency band of about 2–
6 kHz, especially the frequency of 3.7 kHz. By comparison between
Figs. 7(b) and 8(b), due to piston scuffing fault some vibration com-
ponents with higher amplitude appeared in the frequency band of
2–6 kHz (with the center of 3.7 kHz) in the compression and power
strokes.
Referring to Fig. 8, piston scuffing fault affected highly the
engine vibration and excited the frequency band of about
2–6 kHz. In order to find the exact frequency band which was

Healthy Faulty Healthy Faulty

7000 160
(a) (b)
Engine speed (rpm)

6000 140
Engine torque (Nm)

5000 120
100
4000
80
3000
60
2000 End of test#2 End of test#1 End of test#2 End of test#1
40
1000 20
0 0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450
Time (s) Time (s)
Healthy Faulty Healthy Faulty
80 140
Blow-by flow rate (L/min)

70 (c) 120 (d)

Engine power (kW)

60 100
50
80
40
60
30 End of test#2
End of test#1
End of test#2 End of test#1 40
20
10 20

0 0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450
Time (s) Time (s)

Fig. 4. Engine parameters during the two experiments: (a) speed, (b) torque, (c) power, and (d) blow-by flow rate.
46 A. Moosavian et al. / Applied Acoustics 102 (2016) 40–48

×10 4
92 0.3

90 0.25

Shannon entropy
88
Energy 0.2
86
0.15
84
0.1
82
(a) (b)
80 0.05
coif3 db3 dmey morl sym3 coif3 db3 dmey morl sym3
Wavelet type Wavelet type

×10 5
90
80
Energy to Shannon

70
entropy ratio

60
50
40
30
20
10 (c)
0
coif3 db3 dmey morl sym3
Wavelet type

Fig. 6. Comparison between five wavelet types with three criteria: (a) energy, (b) Shannon entropy and (c) energy to Shannon entropy ratio.

2 Engine vibration
In-cylinder pressure
Amplitude (V)

1.5
1
0.5
0
-0.5 (a)
-1
× 104
2.5 • 1.4
(c) (b)
• 1.2
2
Frequency (Hz)

• 1
1.5
• 0.8
1
• 0.6

0.5
• 0.4

0 • 0.2
2 1.5 1 0.5 0 0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025 0.03 0.035 0.04
Time (s)

Fig. 7. (a) Waveform, (b) frequency spectrum and (c) time–frequency representation of the engine vibration in healthy condition.

excited by piston scuffing, the energy amount of CWT coefficients faulty conditions for each scale was obtained as shown in Fig. 9(b).
was calculated for each scale. As a general rule, faults increase the Referring to Fig. 9(b), the maximum energy difference between
energy content of a vibration signal. Hence, in order to identify pis- healthy and faulty conditions is at the scale of 9. This scale is equal
ton scuffing fault, the scales with maximum energy amount must to the frequency of 3.7 kHz. By considering 60 percent of the max-
be found, means that piston scuffing fault appears in those scales imum energy difference, the scales of 7–14 are obtained which are
which give more energies. Therefore, the frequency band excited equal to the frequency band of 2.4–4.7 kHz. It means that piston
by piston scuffing fault can be obtained through the found scales. scuffing fault has appeared in the scales 7–14 (frequency band of
Based on this statement, the energy amounts of CWT coefficients 2.4–4.7 kHz). Now, with finding the scale range which includes pis-
of the engine vibration for healthy and faulty conditions were cal- ton scuffing fault, the vibration signals related to this scale range
culated (Fig. 9(a)). Also, the energy difference between healthy and are reconstructed. Fig. 10 illustrates the vibration signals related
 A. Moosavian et al. / Applied Acoustics 102 (2016) 40–48 47

2 Engine vibration
In-cylinder pressure

Amplitude (V)
1.5
1
0.5
0
-0.5 (a)
-1
4
×10
2.5 2.5
(c) (b)
2
Frequency (Hz) 2

1.5
1.5
1

1
0.5

0 0.5
2 1.5 1 0.5 0 0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025 0.03 0.035 0.04
Time (s)

Fig. 8. (a) Waveform, (b) frequency spectrum and (c) time–frequency representation of the engine vibration in faulty condition.

Healthy Faulty Table 7

10000 Formulas of the used features.
(a)
Energy of CWT
coefficients

8000 Feature’s name Formula

6000 Maximum F 1 ¼ maxðjxðnÞjÞ
PN
Mean xðnÞ
4000 F 2 ¼ n¼1N
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
PN
Root mean square (RMS) ðxðnÞÞ2
2000 F3 ¼ n¼1
N
PN
0
8000 Skewness ðxðnÞF 2 Þ3
F 4 ¼ n¼1
(b) PN
ðN1Þr3
Difference

6000 Kurtosis ðxðnÞF 2 Þ4

F 5 ¼ n¼1ðN1Þr4
4000
Crest factor F 6 ¼ FF 13
2000
Impulse factor F 7 ¼ 1 PNF 1
0 N n¼1
jxðnÞj
100
109
118
127
136
145
154
163
172
181
190
199
208
217
226
235
244
253
10
19
28
37
46
55
64
73
82
91
1

where x(n) is a signal series for n = 1, 2,. . ., N, N is the number of data points, r is the
Scale standard deviation of x(n).

Fig. 9. (a) Energy amounts of CWT coefficients for healthy and faulty conditions and
(b) difference between the energy amounts shown in (a).

Table 8
Values of the extracted features from the vibration signals shown in Fig. 10.
40 Features Engine vibration Percentage change
Faulty
30 Healthy Healthy Faulty
Amplitude (arbitrary)

20 Maximum 8.91 17.92 101

Mean 8E05 46E05 475
10
RMS 1.31 2.81 115
0 Skewness 0.0310 0.1002 223
Kurtosis 8.51 9.28 9
-10
Crest factor 6.82 6.38 6
-20 Impulse factor 9.37 10 7

-30
0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025 0.03 0.035 0.04
Time (s)
of the extracted features are tabulated in Table 8. According to this
Fig. 10. Reconstructed vibration signals related to the scales of 7–14. table, piston scuffing fault caused the maximum engine vibration
in the frequency band of 2.4–4.7 kHz to increase by about 101%.
Moreover, this fault led an increase as much as 475%, 115%,
to the scales of 7–14 for healthy and faulty conditions. In this fig- 223%, 9% and 7% in the mean, RMS, skewness, kurtosis and impulse
ure, the difference between healthy and faulty conditions is more factor of the engine vibration, respectively. However, piston scuff-
obvious. ing fault caused a 6% decrease in the crest factor of the engine
In the next stage, seven common features were extracted from vibration. Consequently, the obtained results demonstrate the
the vibration signals shown in Fig. 10, in order to see quantitatively significant effects of piston scuffing fault on the engine vibration.
the difference between healthy and faulty conditions. The formulas In the present study, as a new research, the engine vibration
of the used features are presented in Table 7 [11,15,17]. The values was used for piston scuffing fault identification. The results
48 A. Moosavian et al. / Applied Acoustics 102 (2016) 40–48
showed that the proposed method can employed for detection of
this fault. Further studies could be established on intelligent detec-
tion of piston scuffing fault by engine vibration so that an intelli-
gent system, as a final purpose, is developed to detect practically
this fault in engines as the same as knock control system which
uses an accelerometer sensor called knock sensor.
5. Conclusion
In the present study, the effects of piston scuffing fault type
three-body abrasion on the engine performance and vibration
were investigated. By obtaining some vibration characteristics
due to this fault, a procedure was proposed for its detection in SI
engine. The experimental results showed the significant undesir-
able effects of piston scuffing fault on the engine performance. In
this research with the purpose of piston scuffing detection, the
engine vibrations were analyzed by CWT method. The results indi-
cated that ‘‘dmey” wavelet was a worthy case for piston scuffing
fault identification. It was done by employing three criteria,
namely maximum energy, minimum Shannon entropy and maxi-
mum energy to Shannon entropy ratio. According to the results
of CWT analysis by ‘‘dmey” wavelet, piston scuffing fault appeared
in the scales of 7–14 (frequency band of 2.4–4.7 kHz) and more at
the scale of 9 (frequency of 3.7 kHz). Moreover, this fault caused an
increase in maximum, mean, RMS, skewness, kurtosis and impulse
factor of the engine vibration in the frequency band of 2.4–4.7 kHz.
The results obtained in the current research demonstrated that
engine vibration is highly capable of identifying piston scuffing
fault. However, the ability of vibration analysis in detection of
other piston failure modes could be investigated in future. For fur-
ther studies, it is also recommended to investigate the vibration
caused by piston scuffing in bench tests (e.g. motored engine test
and piston scuffing bench tester).
Acknowledgement
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support for
this work that was provided by Irankhodro powertrain company
(IPCO).
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