Investigation of Wear in Heavy Duty Diesel Engines: Part I - Use of Radioactive Tracer Technology

This paper is first in a series of papers designed to investigate wear processes in modern heavy duty diesel engines. The objective of the series is to discuss the effects that engine drive cycle, lubricant formulations and in-service ageing of lubricants have on wear of critical engine components.

In this paper, the Radioactive Tracer Technology technique was used to study the steady state wear behavior of a number of contacting surfaces in a Caterpillar 1P engine, as a function of the drive cycle. A test protocol consisting of 7 modes or stages was used to simulate a variety of drive cycles. The results from this work provide useful insights into the wear behavior of these surfaces under a variety of speed and load conditions.