Investigating the effect of nanocoating on friction loss and abrasion in the piston rings

The piston ring which prepares mechanical sealing of a combustion chamber, should have significant abrasion resistance and less friction loss, using appropriate ring coating. The coating widely used is CrN, because of its good abrasion resistance at room temperature. However, it suffers from some shortcomings, such as high abrasion rate at temperatures above 200°C and lack of self-lubricating property. Although the abrasion behavior of various coatings has been widely investigated, a comprehensive comparing procedure is required to demonstrate the advantages of each coating. In this study, the effects of different Nano-coatings applied to the piston rings of the TU5 IC engine is investigated. The AVL software was used to create hydrodynamic lubrication model and solve numerically the related equations, such as Reynolds and friction loss and the parameters such as friction loss, abrasion, blow-by and oil film thickness were investigated. The results demonstrate that using the Nano-coating reduced friction loss and abrasion by 30 percent and 83 percent, respectively, and the mechanical sealing were improved by 79 percent.