Fire Ring Wear Analysis for a Piston Engine

Ring wear may not be a problem in most current automotive engines. However, a small alteration in the ring face geometry can significantly affect the hydrodynamic lubrication characteristics of the ring. This in turn can cause excessive frictional losses and blowby in an engine. As engines become more compact and highly loaded, ring wear is likely to be more severe than in current engines. In order to assess the effect of ring loading, a piston ring wear model has been developed through the use of ring dynamics analysis with the assumption of a linear relationship between ring wear and the friction work applied on the surface of the ring.

This ring wear analysis clearly shows that the higher the engine speed, the lower the wear rates at the same power output. This finding is consistent with the limited experimental data available. The specific wear rate at steady state drawn from this analysis corresponds to the maximum value of the wear coefficient observed in published experimental studies.