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An essential part of the total parasitic loss in an IC engine is due to the piston ring and liner friction. In this work, a piston ring-liner reciprocating test rig combined with ultrasonic film thickness measurement system was used to understand frictional characteristic of the lubricant that formed in the contact. Two test procedures were carried out for two lubricants with different viscosities. These procedures were a step load increment at a constant speed and a step speed increment at a constant load. The results showed that the piston ring-liner contact was in boundary lubrication regime for low operating speeds at high load. This was consistent with the oil film thickness data. However, mixed lubrication regime was observed for high operating speeds at low loads. The lubricant film thicknesses increased with speed and decreased with load.

The oil film that forms between piston rings and cylinder liners is an essential parameter which influences parasitic loss and emission rates in an internal combustion (IC) engine. Several methods have been used to analyse these thin oil films in the past, however, all these methods have required invasive access to the contact area via a window or a surface mounted sensor in the cylinder wall or liner. This paper introduces a novel approach for the imaging of the piston ring - cylinder contact, non-invasively. A straight beam ultrasonic contact transducer was coupled to the wet-side of the cylinder wall of a motored diesel engine. Ultrasonic waves were propagated through the cylinder wall and reflections from the ring-liner contact were recorded as the piston rings passed over the sensing area.