Study on the frictional performance of slide and plateau honed cylinder liners during running-in

Purpose - During running-in, the change in the honed cylinder liner surface alters the performance and efficiency of the piston ring-pack system. The present paper, thus, aims to investigate the surface topography and wear and friction evolution of a cylinder liner surface during the running-in tests on a reciprocating ring-liner tribometer under a mixed lubrication regime. After an initial period of rapid wear termed running-in wear, a relatively long-term steady-state surface topography can emerge. A numerical model is developed to predict the frictional performance of a piston ring-pack system at the initial and steady-state stages. Design/methodology/approach - The liner surfaces are produced by slide honing (SH) and plateau honing (PH). The bearing area parameter (Rk family), commonly used in the automotive industry, is used to quantitatively characterize the surface topography change during the running-in process. A wear volume-sensitive surface roughness parameter, Rktot, is used to show the wear evolution. Findings - The experimental results show that a slide-honed surface leads to reduced wear, and it reduces the costly running-in period compared to the plateau-honed surface. The simulation results show that running-in is a beneficial wear process that leads to a reduced friction mean effective pressure at the steady-state. Originality/value - To simulate the mixed lubrication performance of a ring-liner system with non-Gaussian roughness, a one-dimensional homogenized mixed lubrication model was established. The real surface topography instead of its statistical properties is taken into account.