Accelerated Simulation of Engine Wet Cylinder Liner Cavitation Test Procedure

Engine cavitation is critical failure as it stops the functioning of engine without any alarm. During such failures, customers need to replace engine liners in the field itself and it is a very common problem in Tractor industry, especially in certain pockets of rural India. Cavitation is a pitting failure phenomena occurring on wet cylinder liners due to bursting of bubbles and these are formed during liner vibration and it leads to cylinder liner puncture by continuous erosion. This type of failure caused to mixing of water in oil, hence engine starts stalling due to lack of lubrication and cooling. A lot of design efforts are being made to eliminate the failure due to cavitation without appreciably increasing material cost. However, there are lacunas in validating in field due to inconsistency of results and stretched testing time. Therefore, there is a need to simulate cavitation test procedure in laboratory through accelerated test methodology. As a first step, parameters affecting the cavitation such as liner vibration, water / coolant quality, liner design were identified. Detailed analysis of the influence of these parameters on cavitation was studied.

The combined effects of coolant quality, liner vibration and cooling system components were studied using laboratory simulation of accelerated test methodology. This paper describes the methodology followed for the simulation of cylinder cavitation failure in lab and validation of results with improved design modifications.