PLASMA SPRAY COATING MATERIALS SELECTION OF

PISTON RING AND CYLINDER LINER FOR MARINE

DIESEL ENGINE
J.-H. HWANG, M.-S. HAN, D.-Y. KIM
Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. Ltd., 1 Cheonha-Dong, Dong-Gu, Ulsan, 682-792, KOREA; e-mail: jonghh@hhi.co.kr

SUMMARY
Following the trend of higher engine output, the piston ring and cylinder liner of large marine diesel engines suffer
various damages from severe lubricating condition. Sometimes this kind of abnormal wear causes much shorter engine
service life. From this point of view, the engine designer should consider the tribological characteristics of the ring and
liner themselves, as well as their correlations. The goal of this study is to suggest the optimal combination of piston
ringcylinder liner and to design the engine system that can ensure the sufficient service life. There are many coating
materials to be applied to piston ring and cylinder liner for enhancing their anti-wear properties. To select a proper
coating materials is critical to fabricate long lasting engine parts, in which understanding wear characteristics of the
coating layer is essential. Thus, wear tests were accomplished using an oscillating high frequency friction machine in
order to inspect the effect of the coating materials on their wear characteristics. We also tried to establish the criteria for
the selection of the optimal coating material by inspection of the condition that minimizes the wear loss.

Keywords: Plasma spray coating, Grey cast iron, CV cast iron, Abrasive wear, Adhesive wear, ASTM G133

1 INTRODUCTION 2.2 Plasma spray coating

Recent marine diesel engines have been progressively
developed to meet the operating condition of higher
power, higher pressure and higher piston speed for
obtaining high efficiency and performance. Therefore,
marine diesel engines under these harsh operating
conditions suffer an excessive wear of reciprocating
parts such as cylinder liners and piston ring [1]. Wear of
these parts causes blow-by, abnormal consumption of
lubricating oil, and other damages. Plasma spray coating
method has been widely adopted as piston ring coating
applications due to its effectiveness in improving the
wear resistance of these parts. Plasma spray coated
piston ring was, however, reported to experience
excessive wear of the coated piston ring itself and
cylinder liner under certain circumstances. Improvement
in design of coatings and their combinations are,
therefore, needed to improve wear resistance of the
piston ring and cylinder liner for marine diesel engine.
Thus, in this study, the effect of the coating materials
selection on the wear characteristics of piston ring and
cylinder liner was studied in order to suggest the optimal
combination of piston ring - cylinder liner and the
selection criteria of the optimal material.
2 PROCEDURES
2.1 Substrate and coating materials
Base materials used in this study were a gray cast iron
having tensile strength of 250 MPa and a compacted
vermicular cast iron, 300 MPa, widely used for cylinder
liner and piston ring, respectively. The powders for
coating used in this study are summarized in Table 1. By
mixture of these alloy powders, three coating materials
were designed as shown in Table 2. Figure 1 shows their
powders configurations after mixed, which are designed
as PO3, PO30 and PM.
An 80 kW METCOTM plasma-spray apparatus was used
to coat the powders onto the substrates. Prior to coating
all substrates were prepared through the following
procedures; (1) pickling and degreasing for removing
surface organic matters, (2) cleaning by ultrasonar, (3)
blasting using aluminum oxide grit to enhance the
binding strength between substrate and coating layer,
and finally (4) re-cleaning in acetone by ultrasonar after
removal of the grits by compressed air. All process
parameters, e.g. arc current and voltage, gas pressure,
specimen rotating speed, gun traveling speed, feed rate,
and spraying distance were maintained constant except
powder flow rate. Each plasma spray coating was
prepared for a coating thickness of about 500 m.
2.3 Wear test
Wear tests were carried out using an oscillating high
frequency friction machine, PLINT TE77TM, according
to ASTM G133 standard [2], as shown in Figure 2.
Wear tests were conducted under the condition of 80 N
load, oscillating frequency of 20 Hz with stroke 15mm
at temperature of 450 C by oscillating the disc
specimen (124) against the stationary plate
specimen (58384) in order to simulate the
reciprocating motion between ring and liner of actual
engine system. Prior to wear test, all the specimen were
polished by emery paper #400 to give a same surface
condition. All the test runs were conducted for 1.5 hours
after running-in for 10 minutes without lubrication at the
above condition. In order to inspect the effect of the
coating materials on the wear characteristics, six
combinations of friction pairs were tested as shown in
Table 3.
2.4 Evaluations
Surface roughness of all specimens was evaluated
before/after test in terms of arithmetic average value
(Ra) by a stylus type roughness tester. Weight loss of
each tested sample was measured using a automatic
weight balance with an accuracy of 10-4g. Finally both
topo- and metallo-graphic observation on the worn
surface of the coated layer were carried out using a
scanning electron microscope and an optical microscope
to investigate the wear characteristics, such as wear
pattern and surface morphology.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1 Microstructure of coated layer
Figure 3 exhibits a typical microstructure of the coating
layers. There are apparent differences in the
morphologies, e.g. splats size and configuration, and
the porosity content, of the coating layers. The
microstructure of the PO3 coated layer is composed of
dark phase of Cr2O3 splats and gray phase of NiCr
splats, and the PO30 has white phase of Mo, gray phase
of NiCr and dark phase of Cr2O3, whereas PM consists
of white phase of Mo and gray phase of Cr3C2-NiCr. Of
these three coating layers, PM has the largest splat size.
This is, of course, due to the original powder size, as
previously shown in the Figure 1. Meanwhile, Table 4,
indicating the porosity and hardness level of the coating
layer shows that the PO30 contains relatively less
amount of porosity, but possess higher hardness. These
differences in porosity content and hardness level on the
coating layers are generally related to the chemical and
physical characteristic of the powders used.
3.2 Wear characteristics
Figure 4 displays the change of the friction coefficient
value on the designed wear pairs as a function of the
wear time. Among the tests with the uncoated disc as
moving specimen (Run 1, 2, 3), Run 2 revealed the
lowest friction coefficient value, about 0.4, but among
the tests with the coated one, Run 5 has the lowest one.
It is generally known that the friction coefficient
depends on both the coating materials and their wear
mechanics occurring during wear test. Figure 5 shows
the wear tracks according to the designed wear pairs.
The wear tracks of bare CV cast iron disc on bare
cylinder liner plate (Run 1) shows many deep scratches
in both worn surfaces. This is produced mainly by
abrasion, which suggest that severe wear of the
component will occur for long-term operation. However,
the wear tracks in Run 2 show some different wear
pattern compared to that of Run 1. That is, the scratches
formed on the disc show more finer and shallower than
that of Run 1, perhaps due to the use of fine coating
powder, while the plate shows not severe wear but
smooth wear due to its relative higher hardness, as
shown in Table 4. It is reported that the formation of the
smooth layer like this in the plasma-sprayed ceramic
coatings was related to material transfer as well as
plastic deformation of the surface layer [3]. Table 5
shows the characteristics of worn surface after wear test.
Of six combinations of friction pairs, the pairs bearing
Mo powder in their coating layer show a relative higher
friction coefficient. It is well known that Mo was
selected in order to improve the high temperature
fracture toughness without sacrificing the wear
properties [4], which in turn generally contributes to
better wear resistance by decreasing the spalling level of
the coating particle due to the effect of solid lubricant.
But contrary to this, there was a report that Mo based
coating generally gave high friction coefficient [5]. This
may be caused by its adhesion wear pattern. It is natural
that adhesive friction gets larger total contact area than
abrasive one during wear test. Figure 6 shows the weight
change according to the friction pairs after wear test.
Most plates gained a weight, whereas the weight change
of the rings showed almost similar pattern besides the
case of Run 3. It can be explained that this phenomenon
occurred due to the transfer of materials from the mating
surface, possibly including wear debris and some oxide
formed at higher friction temperature [3]. On the other
hand, there were marked differences in the surface
roughness of the worn surface. Surface roughness of the
bare CV cast iron disc on bare gray cast iron plate shows
much higher surface roughness than that of the coated
one. In the bare grey cast iron plate, surface roughness
indicated about 4.5 m in Ra, whereas other coated
plates ranged 0.4 to 2.8 m in Ra. Increase in surface
roughness of the bare gray cast iron was attributed to an
increase in the wear rate due to its lower hardness in
comparison with other coated one.
4 CONCLUSIONS
On the basis of the tribological analysis result on the
worn surface of various coating layers, the following
conclusions are drawn.
The Cr2O3-NiCr coating showed an abrasive
wear pattern and had lower friction coefficient
value than that of the coating layer containing
Mo.
The coating layer containing Mo yielded
increase of the friction coefficient with a
decrease in the surface roughness due to its
adhesive wear pattern.
Considering the wear loss of both ring and
liner, it provides a beneficial effect by
minimizing wear loss of ring and liner to coat
both parts at the same time.
5 REFERENCES
[1] S.Mitsutake, S.Ono, K.Maekawa, F.Takahashi and
A.Deguchi: Lubrication of cylinder liners and piston
rings of low-speed marine diesel engines, Mitsubishi
Technical Review, 24(2), (1987) 87-93.
[2] A.G. Plint and M.A. Plint: A new technique for the
investigation of stick-slip, Tribo. Int.,18(1985) 247-249.
[3] H.S.Ahn and O.K.Kwan: Tribological behaviour of
plasma-sprayed chromium oxide coatings, Wear, 225-
229, (1999) 814-824.
[4] F.Rastegar and D.E.Richardson: Alternative to
chrome: HVOF cermet coatings for high horse power
diesel engines, Surface and Coatings Technology, 90, Cr2O3
(1997) 156-163
NiCr
[5] M.G.S.Naylor and M.P.Fear: Paper presented at the Mo
coatings for advanced heat engines workshop, Castine, NiCr
Maine, August 6-9, 1990.
Cr2O3

Chemical Powder Particle

Kind (a) PO3 (b) PO30
composition morphology size (m)
Cera
99.5Cr2O3 Blocky 22~45
mic Mo

80Ni-20Cr Spheroid 11~53

Metal Spheroid,
Mo 45~90
Agglomerated
Cerm
Cr2O3-30NiCr Agglomerated 45~106
et
Cr3C2-NiCr
Table 1: Powder characteristics used in this study Mo

(c) PM
Chemical composition, wt.%
Mark Figure 1: Plasma spray coating powder configuration
Cr2O3 Cr3C2 NiCr Mo
PO3 80 - 20 -
PO30 68 - 17 15
PM - 42 18 40
Table 2: The designed powder for plasma spraying

Disc (Piston ring)

Wear test combinations Bare, CV
PM
cast iron
Plat Bare, Gray cast iron Run 1 Run 4
e PO3 coated Run 2 Run 5
(Cyl Figure 2: Reciprocating wear test machine
.
liner PO30 coated Run 3 Run 6
) Mo
NiCr Cr2O3
Table 3: Wear test map employed in this study NiCr

Cr2O3

Kind Porosity, % Hardness, HV

PO3 6.0~9.0 605~665
PO30 1.5~3.0 595~670
PM 9.0~10.0 375~420
(a) PO3 (b) PO30
Table 4: The porosity and hardness level of the coated
layer according to the used powder

Cr3C2-NiCr
Identifica Friction Surface roughness, m Mo

tion Coefficient Disk Plate

Run 1 0.501 5.30 (Bare) 4.50 (Bare)
Run 2 0.398 1.95 (Bare) 2.80 (PO3)
1.00
Run 3 0.566 0.70 (Bare)
(PO30)
Run 4 0.555 0.30 (PM) 0.20 (Bare) (c) PM
Run 5 0.479 0.80 (PM) 0.40 (PO3)
Figure 3: Cross-sectional microstructure of the coated
Table 5: Friction coefficient and surface roughness layers
value measured from the worn surface after wear test
 1
Disk Plate

Friction C oefficient
0.8

Run 3
0.6

(c) Run 3
Run 1
Disk Plate
0.4

Run 2

0.2
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000
T est T im e, sec

(a) Uncoated disc

(d) Run 4
1
Disk Plate
Friction C oefficient

0.8

Run 4
0.6

Run 6
(e) Run 5
0.4 Disk Plate
Run 5

0.2
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000
T est T im e, sec

(b) PM coated disc

(f) Run 6
Figure 4: Wear test results according to the designed
wear test pairs Figure 5: Micro-view of the wear scars after wear test
Disk Plate
20
Run 2
15 Run 3
W eight Change, mg

Run 4
10 Run 5
Run 6
5

(a) Run 1 0

Disk Plate -5

-10

-15

-20
D isk Plate
(b) Run 2
Figure 6: Weight change according to the designed
wear test pairs