A Critical Review of Approaches to the Design of Floating-Liner Apparatus for Instantaneous Piston Assembly Friction Measurement

Several approaches have been developed to measure instantaneous friction between the piston assembly and cylinder in internal combustion (IC) engines, such as floating-liner, reciprocating liner, instantaneous mean effective pressure (IMEP), fixed sleeve, and (P-omega) method and tribological bench tests. However, the floating-liner method and the (IMEP) method are the most common methods used to measure instantaneous friction between the piston assembly and IC engines. This paper critically evaluates different approaches to the design of the floating-liner. The paper begins by discussing piston assembly frictional losses and their significance and then discuss the development of instantaneous piston-friction measurements. After that, it reviews the main design challenges in the floating-liner approach. Methods of cylinder sealing and force balancing methods are also reviewed. Design challenges associated with firing operation were presented. Floating-liner designs were classified into different categories with a detailed presentation of the features of each. The paper ends by presenting a range of broad recommendations for further work which would benefit future designs.

Automated summary

This paper critically evaluates different approaches to measure instantaneous friction between the piston assembly and cylinder in internal combustion engines, focusing on the floating-liner method and the instantaneous mean effective pressure (IMEP) method. The significance of piston assembly frictional losses, development of instantaneous piston-friction measurements, main design challenges in the floating-liner approach, methods of cylinder sealing and force balancing, and design challenges associated with firing operation are discussed and recommendations for future work are provided.