Tribological studies of automotive piston ring by diamond-like carbon coating

Abstract

Increasing environmental awareness and demanding low energy consumption are of the top priorities for future vehicles manufacturing companies. This can be achieved by reducing wear and friction of engine components, so that its efficiency and lifetime can be increased. Surface treatments and coatings contribute to a better lubrication with oils and can participate significantly in achieving these goals. In this paper, diamond-like carbon (DLC) coating has been incorporated to the vehicle piston rings with different RF powers using magnetron sputtering method. The tribological properties like wear and coefficient of friction have been analysed using Pin-on-Disk tribometer. Micro-hardness and nano-hardness of the coated piston rings were characterized by micro-indentor and nano-indentation processes. Surface microstructure and elemental compositions were observed using Scanning Electron Microscopy. Experimental results demonstrated that the DLC coating shows lower wear and friction under similar operating conditions as compared to uncoated piston rings. Thus, usage of DLC coating has enhanced the engine life time. Silicon interlayer has also been applied between nitrided piston rings and DLC layer in order to have better coating adhesion. The properties of the interlayer are not studied but usage of it is found to protect DLC coating from delamination.

TiAlCN Kaplı Piston Segmanının Tribolojik Özelliklerinin İncelenmesi

“…It is very important that the coatings have a low coefficient of friction. Because the high coefficient of friction increases the wear rate that affects the performance of the engine (Vinoth et al, 2019). For this reason, it is necessary to know the effects of surface coatings applied to the rings against friction.…”

Experimental Analysis of the Influence of the Application of TiN, TiAlN, CrN and DLC1 Coatings on the Friction Losses in an Aviation Internal Combustion Engine Intended for the Propulsion of Ultralight Aircraft

“…Integration of traditional ceramic coatings with a hard, low-friction surface has been shown to work well for anti-wear coatings, and amorphous carbon has been shown to improve the frictional strength of the chrome surface. In [44], it was shown that a diamond-like carbon (DLC) coating shows smaller wear and friction under operating conditions similar to those of uncoated piston rings. Thus, it has been proven that the use of a DLC coating contributes to an increase in the service life of the piston elements in internal combustion engines.…”

Tribo-behaviour of APS and HVOF sprayed WC–Cr3C2–Ni coatings for gears

“…The coatings deposited with various thermal spray variants, i.e. WC–Cr 3 C 2 –Ni [1], WC [3], WC–Co [4], WC–NiCr [5] and WC–CoCr [6,7] could be employed for brake pistons [8], gears [9], shock absorber rods [8] and engine components [3,10]. The primary tribological design objective of gear life is higher resistance to abrasive wear, erosion wear and corrosion.…”