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SUMEBore - The Coating Solution to Protect Cylinder Liner Surfaces
Abstract:
Rising fuel prices and more stringent requirements in the field
of the vehicle emissions such as nitrogen oxides, particulate
matter and carbon dioxide will increase the pressure on the engine
manufacturers to utilize technologies which contribute to a
reduction in these emissions. As a result, interest in cylinder
surface coatings has increased considerably in the last few years,
also in the SUMEBore® coating solution from Sulzer Metco.
SUMEBore coatings are applied by a powder-based air plasma
spraying (APS) process. Such an APS process is very flexible and
can also process materials to which wire-based methods do not have
any access, particularly metal matrix composites and pure ceramics.
The compositions can be tailored to the specific challenges in an
engine, e.g., excessive abrasive wear, scuffing, corrosion caused
by adulterated fuel or high exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) rates,
etc. Over the past several years cylinder liner running surfaces
from trucks, diesel locomotives, marine and gas engines, for power
generation and gas compression have been coated with such APS
materials and engines have been tested successfully. Most of the
tested engines achieved significant reductions in lubricant oil
consumption (LOC), sometimes in excess of 70%, reduced fuel
consumption, very low wear rates and good corrosion resistance on
the liner surfaces. Results are presented from a full size test on
an EMD-710G3A locomotive engine, which was performed in
collaboration with GE Transportation at the Southwest Research
Institute (SwRI) in San Antonio, TX.
This APS coating solution has already been commercialized in
various markets; it has proven to be suitable for mass production
on both new engine blocks and liners, and for repair of worn-out
parts. Such coatings will continue to play an important role when
it comes to reductions of emissions from internal combustion
engines.