Date of Award
7-11-2022
Publication Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Department
Mechanical, Automotive, and Materials Engineering
Supervisor
xueyuan Nie
Supervisor
Jimi Tjong
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
Government has mandated all the automakers to increase their vehicle fleet miles per gallon average (MPG) to mitigate the global warming effects. Automakers have to find ways to reduce vehicle weight and frictional loss between powertrain components to increase the MPG, a higher MPG can help to reduce the vehicle fuel consumption and emissions. One popular approach is to remove the cast iron cylinder block liners and replace them with a lighter more thermally efficient material to reduce engine weight and enhance engine performance with higher power output or higher fuel efficiency. In this work, electrolyte jet plasma oxidation (EJPO) coating was the first time to be applied on engine cylinder bore and other components to enhance engine performance, reduce weight and cost. EJPO coating is a kind of aluminum oxidation coating which has high hardness, high corrosion resistance, low coefficient of friction (COF) and good thermal properties. Lab tribology tests and thermal investigation showed EJPO coating had 65% lower COF than cast iron and 50% lower than plasma transfer wire arc (PTWA) coating, and better thermal properties. EJPO coated 2.0 L and 5.0 L engines were tested and compared with cast iron liner engine and PTWA coated engine. EJPO coated 2.0 L engine passed Break-in test, Power test and 100 hours engine fatigue test. Compared with cast iron liner 2.0 L engine, EJPO coated 2.0 L engine had higher power output, especially at speeds lower than 3000 rpm and speeds higher than 5000 rpm. EJPO coated 2.0 L engine block reduced weight around 6.4% and reduce cost around 17.5%. EJPO coated 5.0 L engine passed Break-in test, Power test and vehicle durability test. Compared with PTWA coated 5.0 L engine, the EJPO coated 5.0 L engine had higher power output at speeds lower than 3000 rpm and the EJPO coated camshaft bores, piston crown and cylinder head dome enhanced the performance more at high speeds. EJPO coated 5.0 L engine block reduced weight around 2% and reduce cost around 9% compared with PTWA coated one. EJPO coating’s lower COF and thermal swing property contributed to the higher engine performance. Lower COF helped to reduce engine friction loss, and the thermal swing property helped to reduce the engine heat loss without heating up the intake air temperature. EJPO coating process and honing process parameters for 2.0 L and 5.0 L aluminum engine blocks were developed and the engine cylinder bore coating thickness, coating roughness, and piston to bore clearance were found in this work. EJPO coating is a potential candidate material for internal combustion engine to enhance performance, reduce weight, cost and increase the MPG in the future.
Recommended Citation
Wang, Guang, "Development of advanced coating for enhancing performance of internal combustion engine" (2022). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 9607.
https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/9607