Effects of liner surface textures on the tribological performance of different production piston rings

Based on the characteristics of engine working conditions, the ring/liner reciprocating friction tests were conducted to research the effects of three typical cylinder liner surface topographies (honed surface, large dimple texture and small dimple texture) on the tribological performance of production piston ring pack. The experimental results demonstrated the effects of liner textures are different between three kinds of piston rings: for the barrel-shaped ring-liner pair, the large or small dimple texture has its specific working condition; for the taper-faced ring-liner pair, the oil scraping efficiency and oil distributing stability can be improved by texturing small dimples on liner surface; while the dimple textures have little influence on the friction force of oil control ring-liner pair. In addition, texturing micro-dimples on liner is conducive to reducing the surface wear caused by abrasive wear, and the anti-wear effect of small dimple texture is much better.