Technology Upgrades and Reliability Analysis of a Tribometer for Performance Evaluation of Cylinder Piston Rings.

The design of existing tribometers mainly focuses on normal contact and lubricant conditions and aims to evaluate the effect of the load, speed, and environmental conditions on the rubbing pair properties. The effect of the contact angle and variable speed on the rubbing pair properties is often not considered. In this study, a multidirectional adjustment tribometer is developed to evaluate the tribological behavior of cylinder liner–piston rings under dry sliding or oil lubrication conditions. The dynamic, specimen clamping, measuring, and control systems are redesigned according to the structural characteristics of the SKODA-SAVIN tribometer and special requirements of research on the net texture effect on tribological properties. Using LabVIEW software, a man–machine interface is designed to achieve converter control, data acquisition, and other functions. A fail-safe analysis is performed through reproducibility, comparability, and sensitivity tests. From the experiments, it is proved that the tester can provide more detailed, abundant, and reliable data for the performance testing and development of cylinder liner–piston ring materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]