Wear 261 (2006) 792796

Testing piston rings with partial laser surface texturing for friction reduction
G. Ryk, I. Etsion
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technion, Haifa 32000, Israel Received 27 July 2005; received in revised form 21 January 2006; accepted 24 January 2006 Available online 2 March 2006

Abstract An experimental study is presented to evaluate the effect of partial laser surface texturing (LST) on friction reduction in piston rings. Tests were performed on a reciprocating test rig with actual piston rings and cylinder liner segments. A comparison was made between the performance of a reference non-textured conventional barrel shape rings and optimum partial LST cylindrical shape rings. It was found that the partial LST piston rings exhibited about 25% lower friction. 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Automotive; Friction; Piston rings; Surface texturing; Testing; Engine

1. Introduction The friction loss in an internal combustion engine is the most important factor in determining the fuel economy and performance of the vehicle utilizing the power of the engine. Approximately 50% of the friction losses in an internal combustion engine are due to the piston/cylinder system, of which 7080% comes from the piston rings, e.g. [14]. Proper lubrication and surface texture are key issues in reducing friction in a piston/cylinder system and, hence, have received great deal of attention in the relevant literature. Surface texturing as a means for enhancing tribological properties of mechanical components is well known for many years. Perhaps the most familiar and earliest commercial application of surface texturing in engines is that of cylinder liner honing [5,6]. Surface texturing in general and laser surface texturing (LST) in particular has emerged in recent years as a potential new technology to reduce friction in mechanical components [7]. More specically for the piston/cylinder system Ronen et al. [8] developed a theoretical model for a piston-cylinder system with LST at face piston rings. The authors studied the potential use of piston ring micro-surface structure in the form of spherical micro-dimples to reduce the friction between rings and cylin-

Corresponding author. Tel.: +972 4 829 2096; fax: +972 4 829 5711. E-mail address: etsion@tx.technion.ac.il (I. Etsion).

der liner where the entire ring face in contact with the cylinder liner was textured. It was demonstrated that signicant hydrodynamic effect can be generated by this surface texturing even with nominally parallel mating surfaces. An optimum value of the micro-dimple depth over diameter ratio was found, which yields a minimum friction force. It was found that a friction reduction of 30% and even more is feasible with textured ring surface. The model prediction was experimentally veried by Ryk et al. [9]. Kligerman et al. [10] developed an analytical model of partial LST at face piston rings where only a portion of the ring face width is textured. The partial LST is based on a so-called collective effect of the dimples that provide an equivalent converging clearance between nominally parallel mating surfaces (similar to the inlet roughness concept in [11]). Kligerman et al. [10] found that the friction for the optimum partial LST piston rings is signicantly lower than that for the corresponding optimum full LST rings [8,9]. This was veried experimentally by Ryk et al. in [12]. Most of the work on LST piston rings friction reduction that has been done so far has concentrated on LST at piston rings in comparison with non-textured at face rings. The common practice of production piston rings is however, a barrel shaped face rather than a at cylindrical face. The barrel shaped face has evolved over the years as the optimum shape for conventional non-textured rings. The crown of such rings provides a converging uid lm between the ring and liner resulting in an efcient hydrodynamic effect which may mask

0043-1648/$ see front matter 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.wear.2006.01.031

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Fig. 1. Reciprocating test rig.

the benet of LST. Hence, an appropriate comparison of the optimum LST at ring should be made with the common efcient non-textured barrel shaped ring. The aim of the present paper is to present such a comparison. 2. Test rig description A special test rig was designed to provide linear reciprocating sliding motion simulating the case of piston ring and cylinder liner. A detailed description of the test rig is presented in Ref. [9]. The main structural features of the test rig are shown in Fig. 1. An electric motor 1 drives the crank mechanism 2 that ensures reciprocal motion of a cylinder liner segment along the two linear bearing guides 9, xed on a common basis and isolated from the laboratory oor by special damping pads. A self-alignment holder mechanism 4 ensures alignment of two piston ring segments with respect to the counterpart cylinder liner segment. It also allows the application of a normal load Fe as well as feeding of lubricant to the contact zone and leading out wires of thermocouples that are embedded in the piston ring

specimens to measure their face temperature. A special device consisting of two elastic beams 11 was designed to measure the friction force. These beams allow the displacement of an arm 13, which deects due to the friction force acting between the rubbing surfaces. Strain gauges attached to the elastic beams register the time variations of this deection corresponding to variations in the friction force between piston rings and cylinder liner. The reciprocating speed measurement is realized with an optical gauge 14. A schematic of the test is presented in Fig. 2 showing two production piston ring segments 6 and a production cylinder liner segment 7. The angular extent of the contact between ring segments and cylinder liner surfaces is 40 degrees. The ring segments are freely mounted in special grooves in the holder to simulate real piston ring possible tilt during reciprocation. The operating normal load Fe is applied to the self-aligned specimens holder by means of accurate weights. Fully formulated engine oil SAE 40 is supplied from a reservoir 1 through a metering system for lubricant ow rate control by drip lubrication. The feeding oil system is used to simulate actual oil

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Fig. 2. Schematic of the testpiston rings and cylinder liner.

consumption in the engine. The test rig is provided with a heat source 8 for heating the friction zone and maintaining a selected ambient temperature to simulate, as closely as possible, the lubricant viscosity conditions in an internal combustion engine. 3. Specimens and test procedure Cylinder liner segments were prepared from a production cast iron liner having a bore diameter of 93.74 mm. The corresponding Cr coated piston rings had 2.0 mm nominal contact face width with very rough original surface as shown in Fig. 3(a). Two segments of 40 circumferential extent were cut from each piston ring from two circumferential zones symmetrically located away from the ring gap where the curvature of the ring had the best conformity with the cylinder liner radius. The rings were mounted in their holder and were subjected to a careful runningin process that assured good circumferential conformity between them and the liner over 90% of their circumferential extent. A prolometer trace across the face width of a run-in ring segment is presented in Fig. 3(b) exhibiting the much smoother surface and the 4.4 m crown height of the barrel shape ring. The barrel shape ring segments obtained with the procedure described above were used as the reference for the evaluation of friction reduction with LST at rings. Flat cylindrical face rings were obtained by special lapping of as-received piston rings. Fig. 4(a) presents the results of prolometry of such a lapped ring. As can be seen, the ring face is almost completely at with very little crowning of only 1.7 m. These lapped rings were then subjected to a partial LST treatment that left raised material (bulges) around the circumference of the micro dimples as shown in Fig. 4(b). The analysis in [10] shows that the position of the textured portion has little effect on the friction force. Hence, for the present experimental study, the partial LST was applied symmet-

Fig. 3. Prolometer measurement across the face width of a barrel shape piston ring: (a) as received, and (b) after running in.

rically at both axial ends of the at rings (see Figs. 4(b) and 5). Two segments were obtained from each LST at face treated ring and were subjected to the same running-in process as described above for the non-textured reference segments. The LST parameters were selected on the basis of the optimum results from the model of the partial LST in Ref. [10], and

Fig. 4. Prolometer measurement across the face width of a cylindrical shape piston ring: (a) after lapping of the as-received ring, and (b) after partial LST.

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oil feeding rate, parameters of the laser texturing. The friction tests were carried out with several values of the normal load Fe corresponding to a nominal contact pressure range from 0.1 to 0.3 MPa. The lower contact pressure represents typical values caused by the rings own elasticity in a real engine. The higher contact pressure represents the additional average gas pressure acting on the back of the ring, which for a medium power gasoline engine is about 0.2 MPa. It is important to emphasize that the actual external normal load Fe acting on the piston ring varies with time (crank shaft angle) along with the gas pressure change in the combustion chamber. However, since the average friction force is only slightly affected (less than 15%, see [13]) by the combustion pressure spike, the external normal load in the present experiments was maintained constant during the reciprocation of the specimens. The average friction force over one reciprocating cycle was evaluated by on-line integration of the absolute values of the instantaneous measured friction force. The resolution of these measurements was 0.1 N and the accuracy was 5%. The average friction force was used to evaluate the efciency of the partial LST. The stroke in the tests was 100 mm and the rotational velocity of the crank was varied in each test from 500 to 1200 rpm. The heater was tuned to provide an ambient temperature of 6570 C with corresponding dynamic viscosity of the lubricant SAE40 oil in the range of 3833 mPas, respectively. The temperature in the friction zone was higher and increased with increasing speed and normal loading. The lubricant ow rate was maintained at one drop of 0.01 g (3 mg) every 135 s. All tests started at 500 rpm followed by step increments of 100 rpm each, up to the maximum speed of 1200 rpm. It took between 3 and 5 min for the surface temperature to stabilize at each speed level. After reaching the stable temperature, friction measurement was taken at each speed level. A personal computer accomplished data acquisition and processing thus enabling online calculation of the average friction force over one cycle of revolution at every crank speed. 4. Results and discussion Two series of tests were carried out to study the benet of partial LST in friction reduction of textured piston rings. The rst consisted of the non-textured barrel shape face rings to establish a reference, and the second was performed with partial LST cylindrical face rings. Typical results are shown in Fig. 6 for a representative case with a nominal contact pressure of 0.2 MPa. The average friction force is presented versus crank rotational velocity for the reference non-textured barrel shape rings and for the partial LST cylindrical face rings. As can be seen the average friction increases with speed and load in both cases as would be expected in a hydrodynamic lubrication regime. Clearly the LST has a substantial effect on friction reduction compared to the nontextured reference rings. The average friction obtained with the partial LST cylindrical face rings is about 2025% lower than

Fig. 5. Partial LST at face piston ring: (a) schematic of a partial LST ring segment, (b) top view of the two symmetrically located LST zones of width B/2 each at both axial ends of the piston ring having a face width W, and (c) photograph of the partial LST face shown in (b) with a face width W = 2 mm.

the experience gained in previous tests [9,12]. It was shown in [10] that for a ring having a face width W, the optimum total width B to be textured (see Fig. 5(b)) for minimum friction should result in a ratio B/W = 0.6. This optimum ratio holds for a wide range of LST parameters and operating conditions of the piston ring-cylinder system simulation. Hence, a textured width portion of 0.6 was applied to all the partial LST specimens symmetrically at their axial ends (see Fig. 5). The laser texturing parameters at the end of the running-in were (average values): dimple diameter 72 m, dimple depth 7.5 m, and area density of the dimples 50%. The parameters that could be varied in the present study are: operating normal load Fe , sliding speed U, ambient temperature,

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test rig by measuring the friction force between piston rings and cylinder liner segments. The results were compared with a reference non-textured barrel face piston ring. It was found that, within the speed limitation of the test rig, a friction reduction of up to about 25% can be obtained with partial LST cylindrical face rings. Some preliminary real engine tests, with production (barrel shaped) piston rings and cylinder liners did not show the same amount of friction reduction. Further investigation is required with a ring engine using optimum partial LST cylindrical face rings.
Fig. 6. Time average friction force vs. crank rotational velocity for external normal pressures of 0.2 MPa.

Acknowledgments Partial support by the Argonne National Lab., the Israel Ministry of National Infrastructure, and the Japan Technion Society Research Fund is gratefully acknowledged. References
[1] M. Nakada, Trends in engine technology and tribology, Tribology Int. 27 (1994) 38. [2] G.D. Knoll, H.J. Peeken, Hydrodynamic lubrication of piston skirts, J. Lub. Tech. Trans. ASME 104 (1982) 504509. [3] H. Mitsuru, B. Yasukazu, A study of piston friction force in an internal combustion engine, ASLE Trans. 30 (1987) 444451. [4] M. Takiguchi, K. Machida, S. Furuhama, Piston friction force of a small high speed gasoline engine, J. Tribology Trans. ASME 110 (1988) 112118. [5] Y.R. Jeng, Impact of plateaued surfaces on tribological performance, Tribology Trans. 39 (1996) 354361. [6] E. Willis, Surface nish in relation to cylinder liners, Wear 109 (1986) 351366. [7] I. Etsion, State of the art in laser surface texturing, J. Tribology Trans. ASME 127 (2005) 248253. [8] A. Ronen, I. Etsion, Y. Kligerman, Friction reducing surface texturing in reciprocating automotive components, Tribology Trans. 44 (2001) 359366. [9] G. Ryk, Y. Kligerman, I. Etsion, Experimental investigation of laser surface texturing for reciprocating automotive components, Tribology Trans. 45 (2002) 444449. [10] Y. Kligerman, I. Etsion, A. Shinkarenko, Improving tribological performance of piston rings by partial surface texturing, J. Tribology Trans. ASME 127 (2005) 632638. [11] K. Tonder, Inlet roughness tribodevices: dynamic coefcients and leakage, Tribology Int. 34 (2001) 847852. [12] G. Ryk, Y. Kligerman, I. Etsion, A. Shinkarenko, Experimental investigation of partial laser surface texturing for piston rings friction reduction, Tribology Trans. 48 (2005) 583588. [13] A. Ronen, Y. Kligerman, I. Etsion, Different approaches for analysis of friction in surface textured reciprocating component, in: Proceedings of the Second World Tribology Congress, Vienna, 2001, p. 486.

in the reference barrel face rings over the entire speed range from 500 to 1200 rpm. Very similar behavior of that shown in Fig. 6 was found over the entire range of the tested external normal load. Only the friction level was slightly shifted up or down for higher (0.3 MPa) or lower (0.1 MPa) nominal contact pressure, respectively. The percentage difference between the average friction in the non-textured and partial LST rings was almost independent of the nominal contact pressure, and slightly decreased with increasing rotational velocity. It should be noted that above 900 rpm the vibrations level of the test rig starts to increase and above 1200 rpm it reaches such a level that prohibited testing in this speed range. Hence, the friction measurements at 1200 rpm can be considered less reliable than at the 500900 rpm range. Finally, some real engine tests were performed with partial LST barrel shape rings showing very little friction reduction at low speeds below 2000 rpm. Above 2000 rpm this little benet of the partial LST vanished completely. It seems that the barrel shape, which presumably was arrived at by trial and error experience over many years, is not a good candidate for partial LST. The crowning of the ring face by itself provides strong hydrodynamic effect that masks the weaker hydrodynamic effect of the surface texturing especially at high speeds. Hence, in the future a more appropriate comparison with ring engine test should be made, similar to the present rig test, between the performance of optimum non-textured barrel shape and optimum partial LST cylindrical shape rings. 5. Conclusion Friction reduction with partial laser surface texturing (LST) cylindrical face piston rings was evaluated on a reciprocating