An experimental investigation on friction and wear test parameters of cylinder liner and piston ring pair using Taguchi technique

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study about tribological parameters of cylinder liner/piston ring under sliding contact in the presence of lubricant. Design/methodology/approach A reciprocating test rig is used for the experimental work. The Taguchi approach has been adopted to optimize the coefficient of friction and minimum weight loss of piston ring and cylinder liner. Three control factors like load, speed and temperature were used for L9 orthogonal array design and ANOVA (analysis of variance). Parameters have been ranked on the basis of experimental outcomes and signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio analysis. Findings It is observed that coefficient of friction was greatly influenced by speed, and weight loss of piston ring and cylinder liner was greatly influenced by load. The surface morphology by SEM (scanning electron microscopy) analysis was used to understand the wear mechanism of worn-out surface and comparative evaluation was made with the Taguchi method. Originality/value Surface morphology of the worn-out surface is significantly dependent on the load condition which validates the ANOVA results.