An Investigation on Corrosion and Wear Behavior of Automotive Materials

The energy demand of the world is keep increasing, major share of the demand is compensated by non-renewable fossil fuels. Automotive sector consumes a huge amount of fossil fuels, as majority of the segment use internal combustion as a prime mover. In the present era researches are carried to figure out the suitable replacements for fossil fuels to attain sustainable environment. One of the major challenge and keen interest of everyone is on waste management, several researches are aimed to bridge the gap between energy demand and waste management. In such way biofuels came into limelight a decade ago, still numerous works are carried in the area for creating socio economic friendly environment. Enormous studies have been carried out to assess their performance in the internal combustion engines, here in the present study performance of the working material against the biodiesel is studied. In order to optimize the material and its composition, there is need for characterization against the susceptible factors such as corrosion and wear if bio fuels are employed as working fluid. In internal combustion engines the materials used in piston and its associated components have to encounter the working fluid; their endurance should be ensured before their service. The present work covers the characterization of cast iron and aluminum alloy used in piston against biofuel for corrosion and wear resistance. Test specimens are prepared as per the standards; biodiesel is prepared from waste cooking oil by transesterification process for carrying out the experiment. Corrosion rate analysis is carried out as per the standards using constant electric water temperature bath for 1300 hours and surface morphology of test specimens is studied with help of scanning electron microscope and energy dispersive spectroscopy. Aluminum alloy test specimens were prepared and wear rate analysis is done using pin on disc machine. The corrosion rate of cast iron is more compared to aluminum alloy by 40 % when the working fluid is neat diesel and the rate increases to 55 % if biodiesel is used as working fluid. The wear rate of aluminum alloy increases rapidly when the lubrication oil contamination increases.