ARTICLE IN PRESS

Tribology International 42 (2009) 542– 547

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Tribology International
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/triboint

Improving fuel efficiency with laser surface textured piston rings

I. Etsion a,, E. Sher b
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technion, Haifa 32000, Israel
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Pearlstone Center for Aeronautical Studies, Ben Gurion University, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel

a r t i c l e in f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: An experimental study is presented to evaluate the effect of partially laser surface textured piston rings
Received 6 August 2007 on the fuel consumption and exhaust gas composition of a compression–ignition IC engine.
Received in revised form Dynamometer tests were performed with a Ford Transit naturally aspirated 2500 cm3 engine at a
21 January 2008 wide range of engine speeds under near-half-load conditions. A comparison was made between the
Accepted 26 February 2008
performance of reference non-textured conventional barrel-shaped rings and optimum partial laser
Available online 15 April 2008
surface texturing (LST) cylindrical-shape rings. It was found that the partial LST piston rings exhibited
Keywords: up to 4% lower fuel consumption, while no traceable change in the exhaust gas composition or smoke
IC Engines
level was observed.
Fuel efficiency
& 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Engine friction
Piston rings
Laser surface texturing

1. Introduction to reduce friction in mechanical components [12]. More specifically

Developing ever more fuel-efficient and compact automobile
engines with reduced environmental impact is one of the biggest
challenges that tribologists are facing in the era of global warming
[1]. The friction loss in an internal combustion engine is a major
factor in determining the fuel economy and performance of
the vehicle utilizing the power of the engine. Some 20–30% of
the friction losses in a compression-ignition engine are due to the
piston/cylinder system, of which a large part is attributed to
the piston rings, e.g. [2–6]. Proper lubrication and surface texture
are key issues in reducing friction in a piston/cylinder system and,
hence, have received a great deal of attention in the relevant
literature. Surface texturing as a means for enhancing tribological
properties of mechanical components is well known since many
years. Perhaps the most familiar and earliest commercial applica-
tion of surface texturing in engines is that of cylinder liner honing
[7,8]. The honing technology is still the leading one in cylinder
texture preparation and an interesting recent attempt to model its
effect on friction reduction is presented in Ref. [9]. More recently
laser surface treatment has also been applied to cylinder liners,
e.g. [10,11] showing up to 4.5% improvement in the torque
compared with a standard liner [11].
Surface texturing in general and laser surface texturing (LST) in
particular has emerged in recent years as a potential new technology
 Corresponding author.
E-mail address: etsion@technion.ac.il (I. Etsion).
for the piston/cylinder system, Ronen et al. [13] developed a
theoretical model for LST cylindrical face piston rings. The authors
studied the potential use of piston rings with a surface micro-
structure in the form of spherical micro-dimples to reduce the
friction between rings and cylinder liner, where the entire ring face
in contact with the cylinder liner was textured. An optimum value of
the ratio of micro-dimple depth over diameter was found, which
yields a friction reduction of 30% and even more compared with an
un-textured ring. The model prediction was experimentally verified
on a laboratory reciprocating test rig [14]. A significantly lower
friction with optimum partial LST cylindrical face piston rings, where
only a portion of the ring face width is textured, was theoretically
predicted [15] and experimentally verified [16]. The partial LST is
based on a ‘‘collective’’ effect of the dimples [17] that provides an
equivalent converging clearance between nominally parallel mating
surfaces similar to the ‘‘inlet roughness’’ concept in [18].
Some real firing engine tests that were performed with LST
barrel-shape rings showed very little friction reduction compared
with the same un-textured rings at low speeds below 2000 rev/min.
Above 2000 rev/min this little benefit of the LST vanished com-
pletely. It seems that the barrel shape, which presumably was
arrived at by trial and error experience over many years [19], is
not a good candidate for LST. The crowning of the ring face
by itself provides strong hydrodynamic effect that masks the
weaker hydrodynamic effect of the surface texturing especially at
high speeds. Indeed, a more appropriate comparison between the
performance of non-textured barrel shape and optimum partial

0301-679X/$ - see front matter & 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.triboint.2008.02.015
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I. Etsion, E. Sher / Tribology International 42 (2009) 542–547 543

LST cylindrical shape rings, which was performed recently on a 125

laboratory reciprocating test rig [20], showed that a friction
reduction of up to about 25% can be obtained with partial
120
LST cylindrical face rings. The aim of the present paper is
to present a similar comparison that was made with a firing

Torque [N∗m]
engine. An experimental study is presented to evaluate the 115
effect of partial laser surface textured piston rings on the exhaust
gas composition and fuel consumption of a compression-ignition 110
IC engine. Series 1
105 Series 2
Series 3
2. Test rig description
100
1400 1600 1800 2000 2200
A 2500 cm3 four-cylinders naturally aspirated Ford Transit Engine Speed [rev/min]
Diesel engine without any exhaust gas treatment device except
that the original muffler was used to test the effect of the LST as Fig. 2. Engine torque vs. engine speed. Series 1: Barrel, chrome coated, baseline,
applied to the upper set of rings. The total engine running time series 2: Flat, chrome coated, laser treated, series 3: Flat, no chrome, laser treated.
(accumulated) was almost 1800 working hours. During the whole
period the engine had been professionally maintained according
to the manufacturer’s instructions. In the present study, the
engine was mounted on a Hofmann eddy-current dynamometer
test bench (see Fig. 1) having a power absorption capability of
160 kW. A control system controlled the fuel metering of the
engine to keep a constant prescribed engine speed within an
accuracy of 70.25%, and a constant prescribed level of engine
partial load within an accuracy of 70.25%. Four typical near-half-
load working conditions that cover a wide range of engine speeds
where chosen: 1500, 1800, 2000, and 2200 rev/min. The corre-
sponding engine torques for three different series of piston rings
(see Section 4) are shown in Fig. 2. The torque vs. engine speed
curve shows a typical behavior of a naturally aspirated diesel
engine, e.g. [2]; its maximum torque position appears at low
engine speed, while it decreases by some 18% towards its
maximum speed. The torque decrease is attributed to the longer
combustion process (in crank-degrees) of the same amount of
injected fuel at higher engine speeds.
The fuel consumption was measured by weighing periodically Fig. 3. Cross-sections of cylindrical (a) and barrel shape (b) Cr-coated piston rings.
a specially designed fuel container from which the fuel was fed to
the fuel pump, and to which the fuel excess returned. The exhaust
gas composition was analyzed for CO, HC, CO2, O2, and NOx with a
SUN DGA-1000 device, while the engine smoke level (exhaust gas
opacity) was measured in opacity percentages with a SUN DG-
8000 smoke-measuring device.

B/2
z

Fig. 4. Partial LST cylindrical face piston ring: (a) schematic representation of a
partial LST ring segment, (b) top view of the two symmetrically located LST zones
Fig. 1. A picture of the engine on the test bench. of width B/2 each at both axial ends of the piston ring having a face width W.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
544 I. Etsion, E. Sher / Tribology International 42 (2009) 542–547
3. Specimens and test procedure
Half keystone top piston rings type 007 (Federal Mogul, UK)
were obtained for the testing. The outer diameter of the rings was
93.7 mm and their nominal width was 2.5 mm. The peripheral
faces of the rings had been coated with a chrome-based coating
that forms the ring profile in contact with the cylinder liner.
Fig. 3(a) shows a cross-section of a ring with a cylindrical face
profile to which partial laser texturing was applied. Fig. 3(b)
shows a ring with a barrel-shaped face profile that is a series
production ring and was used as the baseline without texturing.
In addition, cylindrical face rings identical to the ones shown in
Fig. 3(a) but without the chrome coating were also obtained for
texturing.
The laser texturing was applied at both axial ends of the
cylindrical face rings as shown schematically in Fig. 4. It was
found in [15] that for a ring having a face width W, the optimum
Fig. 5. Partial LST cylindrical face piston ring. (a) Cr coated ring and (b) uncoated ring.
total width B to be textured (see Fig. 4(b)) should result in a ratio
B/W ¼ 0.6 for minimum friction. This optimum ratio holds for a
wide range of LST parameters and operating conditions of the
piston ring-cylinder system simulation. Hence, in this work a
textured width portion of 0.6 was applied to all the partial LST
piston rings symmetrically at their axial ends.
Fig. 5 shows a 3D optical profilometer scan of the two types of
cylindrical face rings treated by partial LST. The dimples were
located symmetrically along the circumference of the ring on both
ends of its width, leaving the central portion of the ring width un-
textured. The LST was applied on the rings with a 5 kHz pulsating
Nd:YAG laser with a power of 11 kW and pulses of 30 ns duration
and 4 mJ each (by Surface Technologies Ltd.). The LST parameters
of the Cr coated (series 2 in the following) and the uncoated
(series 3) cylindrical face rings are summarized in Table 1. The
softer, uncoated ring resulted in somewhat larger and deeper
dimples with higher area density compared with the Cr-coated
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I. Etsion, E. Sher / Tribology International 42 (2009) 542–547 545

ring. Note also from Fig. 5 that the laser texturing results in bulges was repeated three times. At each point the engine was allowed to
of raised material around the rim of the dimples. The height of reach steady-state conditions, which were typically attained after
these bulges was about 2 mm for the Cr-coated rings (Fig. 5(a)) and 20 min. Figs. 6–12 show the results, where each point represents
about 4 mm for the uncoated rings (Fig. 5(b)). From previous test an average result of the 18 individual corresponding tests. The
rig tests, e.g. [14,16], it was found that these bulges are easily
removed during the first few reciprocating cycles, hence no
special post-process after the LST treatment was needed to 0.06
remove them prior to testing.
Series 1
The effect of the LST as applied to the four top piston rings of
the engine was tested by the following procedure: in order to Series 2
minimize the effect of random environment fluctuations, each set 0.05 Series 3
of rings was tested in three different days. At each day, the same

CO [%]
sets of engine loads and engine speeds were tested in two
different procedures; an engine speed increasing test procedure,
and an engine speed decreasing test procedure. Each procedure
0.04

Table 1
Partial LST parameters of the treated piston rings
0.03
Cr-coated ring (series 2) Uncoated ring (series 3)
1400 1600 1800 2000 2200
Dimple diameter (mm) 90 100 Engine Speed [rev/min]
Dimple depth (mm) 9 10
Dimple area density 0.53 0.66 Fig. 8. Engine CO emission levels vs. engine speed. Series 1: Barrel, chrome coated,
baseline, series 2: Flat, chrome coated, laser treated, series 3: Flat, no chrome, laser
treated.

12 75
Series 1 Series 1
11
Series 2 70 Series 2
Series 3 Series 3
10
65
HC [ppm]
O2 [%]

9
60
8

55
7

6 50
1400 1600 1800 2000 2200 1400 1600 1800 2000 2200
Engine Speed [rev/min] Engine Speed [rev/min]

Fig. 6. Engine O2 emission levels vs. engine speed. Series 1: Barrel, chrome coated, Fig. 9. Engine HC emission levels vs. engine speed. Series 1: Barrel, chrome coated,
baseline, series 2: Flat, chrome coated, laser treated, series 3: Flat, no chrome, laser baseline, series 2: Flat, chrome coated, laser treated, series 3: Flat, no chrome, laser
treated. treated.

10 600
Series 1
9.5 Series 2
550
Series 3
9
NOx [ppm]
CO2 [%]

8.5 500

8 Series 1
450
Series 2
7.5
Series 3
7 400
1400 1600 1800 2000 2200 1400 1600 1800 2000 2200
Engine Speed [rev/min] Engine Speed [rev/min]

Fig. 7. Engine CO2 emission levels vs. engine speed. Series 1: Barrel, chrome Fig. 10. Engine NOx emission levels vs. engine speed. Series 1: Barrel, chrome
coated, baseline, series 2: Flat, chrome coated, laser treated, series 3: Flat, no coated, baseline, series 2: Flat, chrome coated, laser treated, series 3: Flat, no
chrome, laser treated. chrome, laser treated.
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30 rate is lower. The smoke curve (Fig. 11) shows a somewhat similar
behavior, though can hardly be interpreted due to the complex
formation mechanism of the smoke.
25 In contrast with the negligible observed effect on the exhaust
gas composition and smoke level, significant differences were
Smoke [%]

observed in the fuel consumption records (Fig. 12). This is

20 attributed to the large repeatability fluctuations of the exhaust
gas measurements that span from 2% to 5%, while the repeat-
ability of the fuel consumption was found to be much more
Series 1
15 accurate, within 70.5%. It seems that the effect of the laser
Series 2 treatment on rings is purely friction reduction, though if the
Series 3 combustion process has been affected this could not be detected
10 due to the relatively large repeatability fluctuations of the exhaust
1400 1600 1800 2000 2200 gas readings. The LST-treated Cr-coated rings (series 2) seem
to perform somewhat better at low engine speeds while the
Engine Speed [rev/min]
LST-treated rings without Cr coating (series 3) seem to be in favor
Fig. 11. Engine smoke emission levels vs. engine speed. Series 1: Barrel, chrome at high engine speeds. This result is probably due to the somewhat
coated, baseline, series 2: Flat, chrome coated, laser treated, series 3: Flat, no deeper dimples of the series 3 rings (see Table 1) and is
chrome, laser treated.
in agreement with the model prediction of Ref. [15], where
deeper dimples gave lower friction as the speed increases. The
250 LST-treated rings, however, are superior to the baseline reference
Series 1 rings (series 1) over the entire range of engine speed.
It is clearly shown in Fig. 12 that the partial LST-treated piston
bsfc [(g-fuel/s)/(kW∗hr)]

Series 2
245
Series 3
240
235
230
1400 1600 1800 2000
Engine Speed [rev/min]
Fig. 12. Engine specific fuel consumption vs. engine speed. Series 1: Barrel, chrome
coated, baseline, series 2: Flat, chrome coated, laser treated, series 3: Flat, no
chrome, laser treated.
repeatability was found to be within the following figures: for CO
(75%), CO2 (72%), HC (72%), O2 (75%), NOx (72%), smoke level
(75%), and fuel consumption (70.5%).
4. Results and discussion
A comparison between the performance of reference non-LST-
treated, conventional barrel-shaped rings with Cr coating (series 1)
and optimum partial LST cylindrical shape rings (series 2 Cr coated,
and series 3 uncoated), is depicted in Figs. 6–12. Figs. 6–11 show
that no traceable changes in the exhaust gas composition and
smoke level were observed. As expected, the O2 emission curve
(Fig. 6) and the CO2 emission curve (Fig. 7) show that when
more oxygen is consumed (less oxygen retains in the exhaust),
higher CO2 is produced. The CO emission level in CI engines
(Fig. 8) is typically less than 0.1%, which is much lower than that of
its counterpart SI engine, and thus is of little interest here. A similar
argument, thought to a lesser extent, can be argued for the HC
emission (Fig. 9). The NOx emission is shown in Fig. 10. The
emission level maximizes when the engine torque (Fig. 2)
maximizes, thus indicating higher cylinder pressure and tempera-
ture at this point. When the engine speed increases, a longer
combustion process (in crank-degrees) of the same amount of
injected fuel is inevitable. Consequently, the heat release rates and
the cylinder temperatures are lower, and thus the NOx production
rings exhibited up to 4% lower fuel consumption. This level of fuel
economy was obtained at 1800 rev/min, which correspond to the
maximum torque of the engine (see Fig. 2).
It was found that the effect of the LST is lower for particularly
high and particularly low engine loads. It can be assumed that
when the engine load is lower, and the gas pressure inside the
cylinder is lower, the contribution of the ring–cylinder friction to
the total friction power is lower. This is because the lower gas
pressure behind the piston ring has less effect on the normal force
and friction between ring and cylinder. When the engine load is
2200 higher, the magnitude of the ring–cylinder friction losses
increases while the total engine power increases as well such as
the fraction between the total friction losses and the engine power
decreases. Hence, in both the above cases, the expected contribu-
tion of friction reduction between the rings and the cylinder liner
is lower than under mid-load conditions. From the data collected
during experiments with and without LST, there was no noticeable
difference in the engine oil temperature or the crankcase pressure,
thus indicating no negative effect of the LST on a possible leakage
between the in-cylinder and crankcase compartments.
Each series of rings was tested for a total accumulating running
time of about 60 h. After this the rings were disassembled and
checked for possible wear. This was done by measuring the
change of the crown height for the barrel-shaped reference
rings and the change of the dimple depth for the LST rings. The
crown height of the reference rings, which was originally 13 mm
(see Fig. 3(b)), remained unchanged. The cylindrical LST rings had
originally a very small crown of about 2 mm height and this too did
not change. The bulges of raised material that were formed by the
LST around the dimple rims had been completely removed as
expected. The depth of a certain percentage of the dimples was
reduced by some 2–3 mm. This was mainly due to deposited
residues in these dimples. An analytical SEM was used for
determining the composition of these residues. In the Cr-coated
rings it was found to be composed of 83.30% C and 16.7% O. In the
uncoated rings the composition was 88.22% C, 8.85% O, 0.15% S,
0.10% Ca, and 2.68% Fe.
5. Conclusion
A naturally aspirated 2500 cm3 engine was used for evaluating
the effect of partial laser surface texturing of the top piston rings
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
I. Etsion, E. Sher / Tribology International 42 (2009) 542–547
on the exhaust gas composition and fuel efficiency of the engine.
A commercially available barrel-shaped Cr-coated and untextured
ring was used as the reference case, which was compared with
two types of laser-textured cylindrically shaped piston rings, one
of which with a Cr coating and the other uncoated. Optimum laser
texturing parameters for minimum friction were applied to the
cylindrically shaped rings according to previous theoretical
modeling. The laser texturing did not produce a significant change
in the exhaust gas composition where repeatability fluctuations of
the measurements spanned from 2% to 5%. However, a significant
reduction of up to 4% in fuel consumption, with repeatability
within 70.5%, was obtained with the laser-textured piston rings.
Acknowledgments
Partial support by the Argonne National Laboratory, the Israel
Ministry of National Infrastructure, and the Japan Technion
Society Research Fund is gratefully acknowledged.
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