THIS DOCUMENT IS PROTECTED BY U.S.

AND INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT It may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed or transmitted, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means. Downloaded from SAE International by SMTC (SAIC MOTOR Technical Center), Sunday, December 23, 2012 07:05:45 PM

SAE TECHNICAL PAPER SERIES

2012-36-0303

ANALYSIS OF THE FRICTION LOSSES IN AN INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE

MARILIA AMARAL DA SILVEIRA ANTONIO FLAVIO AIRES RODRIGUES LUIZ CARLOS GERTZ ANDR CERVIERI MRCIO AMARAL SENGER

AFFILIATED TO

21th SAE BRASIL International Congress and Exhibition So Paulo, Brasil October, 2nd to 4th

AV. PAULISTA, 2073 - HORSA II - CJ. 1003 - CEP 01311-940 - SO PAULO SP

THIS DOCUMENT IS PROTECTED BY U.S. AND INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT It may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed or transmitted, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means. Downloaded from SAE International by SMTC (SAIC MOTOR Technical Center), Sunday, December 23, 2012 07:05:45 PM

The appearance of the ISSN code at the bottom of this page indicates SAEs consent that copies of the paper may be made for personal or internal use of specific clients. This consent is given on the condition however, that the copier pay a $ 7.00 per article copy fee through the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. Operations Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923 for copying beyond that permitted by Sections 107 or 108 of U.S. Copyright Law. This consent does not extend to other kinds of copying such as copying for general distribution, for advertising or promotional purposes, for creating new collective works, or for resale. SAE routinely stocks printed papers for a period of three years following date of publication. Direct your orders to SAE Customer Sales and Satisfaction Department. Quantity reprint rates can be obtained from the Customer Sales and Satisfaction Department. To request permission to reprint a technical paper or permission to use copyrighted SAE publications in other works, contact the SAE Publications Group.

All SAE papers, standards, and selected books are abstracted and indexed in the Global Mobility Database.

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, in an electronic retrieval system or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISSN 0148-7191 Copyright 2012 SAE International Positions and opinions advanced in this paper are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of SAE. The author is solely responsible for the content of the paper. A process is available by which discussions will be printed with the paper if it is published in SAE Transactions. For permission to publish this paper in full or in part, contact the SAE Publications Group.
Persons wishing to submit papers to be considered for presentation or publication through SAE should send the manuscript or a 300 word abstract of a proposed manuscript to: Secretary, Engineering Meetings Board, SAE.

THIS DOCUMENT IS PROTECTED BY U.S. AND INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT It may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed or transmitted, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means. Downloaded from SAE International by SMTC (SAIC MOTOR Technical Center), Sunday, December 23, 2012 07:05:45 PM

2012-36-0303

Analysis of the Friction Losses in an Internal Combustion Engine

Da Silveira, Marilia Amaral
Lutheran University of Brazil

Gertz, Luiz Carlos

Lutheran University of Brazil

Cervieri, Andre
Lutheran University of Brazil

Rodrigues, Antonio Flavio Aires

Lutheran University of Brazil

Senger, Marcio
Lutheran University of Brazil
Copyright 2012 SAE International

ABSTRACT
This work presents the results of the study of the forces involved in the rubbing friction between the moving parts of the Otto cycle internal combustion engine. In order to study the friction force, a Honda GX 35 engine was modified and a load cell was attached to its chassis. The friction forces among the internal parts of the engine were transferred to the engine chassis, and, by means of a support, to the load cell. Those forces were measured in several situations of the engine, making possible to identify the amount of friction related to each component. The total measured friction power was equal to 112W, representing about 10% of the developed power of the engine. The results obtained by the tests showed the contribution of each individual part of the engine on the friction losses. By the results, it was possible to propose modifications to reduce the total internal friction of the engine, in order to increase its efficiency. After the measurements of the friction force related to different components of the engine, new measurements were carried out in order to analyze the influence of the geometry of the pistons on the friction. During the tests, they were employed pistons with different geometries in relation to the original one. When a modified piston was employed, a reduction of up to 24% could be obtained on the values of friction when compared to those ones produced by original crankshaft rod piston assembly. Most of the friction energy is dissipated as heat through the coolant and lubricant. This heat is removed from the system by the water and oil radiators, so the friction losses also have great influence in the cooling system design.

work is a large portion of the total work, varying from around 10% of the total when the engine reaches its maximum load, to 100% when in idle. The friction determines the maximum torque that the engine can deliver, and also the smallest specific fuel consumption. So, the difference between an engine of common design and a good quality one may be measured in the amount of friction energy that they produce. Most of the friction energy is dissipated as heat through the coolant and lubricant. The heat is removed from the system by the water and oil radiators, so the friction losses also have great influence in the cooling system design. The friction work is defined by the difference between the work delivered by the combustion gases to the piston in the combustion chamber, and the work available on the crankshaft. That work has its energy dissipated as follows [1, 2]: - to draw the fresh mixture through the intake system and into the cylinder, and to expel the burned gases from the cylinder and out of the exhaust system. This is usually called the pumping work; - to overcome the resistance to relative motion of all the moving parts of the engine. This includes the friction between the piston rings, piston skirt, and cylinder wall; friction in the wrist pin, big end, crankshaft and camshaft bearings; friction in the valve mechanism; friction in the gears, or pulleys and belts, which drive the camshaft and engine accessories; - to drive the engine accessories. These can include: the fan, the water pump, the oil pump, the fuel pump, the generator, a secondary air pump for emission control, a power-steering pump, and an air conditioner. The researches involving internal combustion engines have been focused on the reduction of the emission levels and

INTRODUCTION
In internal combustion engines, only part of the work delivered to the pistons become available on the crankshaft. A portion of that work is dissipated as friction. This friction

THIS DOCUMENT IS PROTECTED BY U.S. AND INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT It may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed or transmitted, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means. Downloaded from SAE International by SMTC (SAIC MOTOR Technical Center), Sunday, December 23, 2012 07:05:45 PM

higher efficiency. If higher energy efficiency is desirable, that involves the improvement of engine components, which must include lower friction losses between the moving parts. This paper presents the study of the friction losses in a Honda GX35 engine, including the friction losses produced by each individual component, in order to evaluate the most effective points to modify, and to obtain better results in energy efficiency.

Parameters that could be modified or adjusted as valve lifters gap and camshaft chain timing were kept on its original standard values.

FRICTION
The friction losses can be classified in two groups. One kind is the friction that occurs between two relative moving parts separated by a lubricant film. The other one is the turbulent dissipation. The friction coefficient (Eq. 1) is [1]:
f = f s + (1 ) f L

(1)

In Eq. 1, f s is the dry friction coefficient between two relative moving parts, f L is the hydrodynamic friction coefficient and is the contact constant between the metal parts, varying from 0 to 1. If tends to 1, f tends to f s , then the friction is called boundary friction. In this case, the lubricant film is reduced to a few layers of molecules, and cannot prevent direct contact between metal parts. If tends to 0, f tends to f L , and the friction is called hydrodynamic friction. There is enough lubricant between the metal parts to prevent the direct contact. From one condition of lubrication to the other, there is a partial situation in which occurs the transition between the two cases. Figure 1 illustrates the hydrodynamic lubrication on bearings.

Figure 2 Modified cylinder head.

MEASURING METHOD
The true amount of friction power in an engine is obtained by subtracting the brake power from its indicated power. However, that is not an easy method to recreate, once it is necessary to measure the mean effective pressure inside the cylinder, and also this data must be precisely phased with the angular position of crankshaft, to generate accurate results. The friction in an engine is mostly studied by measuring friction on engines driven by an auxiliary motor [3,4]. The measurement of the friction when the engine is coupled to an auxiliary motor should be done in the closest condition found in a firing engine. The friction in an engine in operation is different from the friction on an engine driven by another motor, mostly due to the different temperature on pistons skirt and rings, and different pressure applied to the rings and piston head. When the engine is under test, driven by an auxiliary motor, its temperature must be kept as close as possible to the temperature of operation when in firing. This can be done by adding an external heat source, or by firing the engine until the motoring procedure, when ignition must be cut. The power required to keep the engine running also includes the pumping power [3,4]. Measurements carried out on an engine driven by an auxiliary motor can be done in partial setups, making possible to identify contribution of individual components to the total friction power. The method applied to measure the friction on the experimental engine was a variation of the original auxiliary motor method. The main difference is related to the method applied to measure torque. The measurement of torque was made by employing a load cell attached directly to the engine body. It gives the advantage of eliminating the influence of

Figure 1: Hydrodynamic lubrication on bearings [1].

THE HONDA GX35 ENGINE

The Honda GX35 engine employed in the study presented here is an internal combustion, Otto cycle, one cylinder, air cooled, full aluminum, two valves OHCV with spitting lubrication, wet sump, static ignition timing, compression ratio of 8:1, 35cc, 1.2kW rated power at 7000rpm. Some modifications were made to the engine, to allow measuring without influence from other kind of friction than the one focused on this research. The cylinder head was drilled (Fig. 2), allowing connecting the combustion chamber to the atmosphere directly. By this way, the pumping friction was reduced by letting gas flow easily. The engine fly wheel and the ignition generator were completely removed. The clutch mechanism, the plastic body shell, the recoil and extra ignition components (spark plug, wiring and coil) were also removed.

THIS DOCUMENT IS PROTECTED BY U.S. AND INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT It may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed or transmitted, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means. Downloaded from SAE International by SMTC (SAIC MOTOR Technical Center), Sunday, December 23, 2012 07:05:45 PM

friction on the bearings and on the engine-motor coupling. To measure the involved force, a load cell of 20N maximum capacity was employed [5]. This load cell supports the engine block, and is attached to a lathe. The force measured by the load cell multiplied by the arm between the point of support on engine block and the center of the crankshaft axis gives the measured torque. The engine was mounted into a lathe (Fig. 3) with its crankshaft axis aligned to the machining axis of the lathe. The front tip of the crankshaft is tied in the lathe face plate, while the back tip is held by the center spindle. The engine body is free to rotate 360 degrees, and is held in place by the load cell (Fig. 4), which measures the force that applies the torque required to keep the engine body standing still.

A data acquisition system was employed during the tests of the engine. It is composed by an analog-digital converter MyPCLab, produced by NOVUS, with an acquisition rate of 11.11Hz, 13-bit resolution. The torque required to keep the engine running at constant speed of 2500rpm was measured in six different setups. In the first setup, it was employed a complete engine, and then, after the measurement of torque, they were removed components of the engine, according described in Table 1. For each setup, the lubricant level was checked. The engine block temperature was raised up using a heat gun. An infra-red thermometer allowed controlling the temperature of the engine block (Fig. 5). When the temperature of 90 Celsius degrees was reached, the measurements were carried out. In each setup, they were made three acquisitions of the output signal of the load cell in order to obtain three values of torque. In setup 1, the tests were carried out on a complete engine, Fig. 6. After, the engine was disassembled and the camshaft timing belt was removed. Then, the measurements were repeated. The tests than follow the sequence of disassembling and removing components, according Table 1. In setup 6, the original piston was replaced by a modified one (Fig. 7). In the modified piston, the surface of contact was reduced in order to obtain lower values of the friction. Table 1 Setups employed to characterize the friction. Setup 1 2 Condition Complete engine Engine without camshaft timing belt Engine without camshaft timing belt and top compression ring Engine without camshaft timing belt, top compression ring and second compression ring Engine without camshaft timing belt, top compression ring, second compression ring and oil control ring Engine without camshaft timing belt, top compression ring, second compression ring, oil control ring and original piston replaced by a modified one

Figure 3 - Engine mounted into a lathe.

3 4

Figure 4 Load cell supporting the engine. Figure 5 Engine temperature monitoring.

THIS DOCUMENT IS PROTECTED BY U.S. AND INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT It may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed or transmitted, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means. Downloaded from SAE International by SMTC (SAIC MOTOR Technical Center), Sunday, December 23, 2012 07:05:45 PM

Figure 8 - Graph of the output signal of the load cell vs. time for setup 1. Figure 6 Engine under tests.

(a)

Figure 9 - Graph of the output signal of the load cell vs. tim5 e for setup 2.

(b) Figure 7 Modified and original pistons: (a) frontal view and (b) lateral view. All measurements were carried out at 2500 rpm. In each setup, they were acquired three values of the output signal of the load cell and the average value was employed for calculation of the friction power.

Figure 10 - Graph of the output signal of the load cell vs. time for setup 3.

RESULTS
The results of the measurements are presented in Fig. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13. The figures show the graphs of the output signal of the load cell vs. time for setups 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, respectively.

Figure 11 - Graph of the output signal of the load cell vs. time for setup 4.

THIS DOCUMENT IS PROTECTED BY U.S. AND INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT It may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed or transmitted, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means. Downloaded from SAE International by SMTC (SAIC MOTOR Technical Center), Sunday, December 23, 2012 07:05:45 PM

torque, T , was obtained by multiplying the force by the lever arm (0.092 m). The friction power was computed by means of Eq. (2):

Pf = Tw
In Eq. (2),

(2)

Pf is the friction power in watt, and w is the

Figure 12 - Graph of the output signal of the load cell vs. time for setup 5.

angular speed of the lathe, in rd/s (261.8 rd/s). Table 2 presents the results of the measurement of force and the respective values of friction power for each setup. For the sake of the comparison, the output signal of the load cell obtained for the six setups are presented together in fig. 14 and, in fig. 15, the values of the power friction. Table 2 Results of the measurements of force and the respective values of torque and power friction for each setup. Average Tension (mV) 447.3 360.7 311.5 256.1 213.5 162.2 Force (N) Torque (Nm) 0.43 0.34 0.30 0.24 0.20 0.15 Friction Power (W) 112.57 90.35 78.03 64.15 53.48 40.63

Setup 1 2 3 4 5 6 Figure 13 - Graph of the output signal of the load cell vs. time for setup 6.

4.65
3.75 3.24 2.66 2.22 1.69

The values of voltage were converted into force by calibrating the load cell. That resulted in a relation of 0.0104 N/mV. The

Figure 14 - Output signal of the load cell vs. time obtained for the six setups.

THIS DOCUMENT IS PROTECTED BY U.S. AND INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT It may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed or transmitted, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means. Downloaded from SAE International by SMTC (SAIC MOTOR Technical Center), Sunday, December 23, 2012 07:05:45 PM

. Figure 15 Friction power for each engine setup.

CONCLUSIONS
The friction power generated by the complete engine was equal to 112W, which, for a 1.2 kW engine, is according to the expected average mechanical efficiency. The contribution of each component of the engine to the total power friction could be computed by subtracting the friction power obtained when that component was removed of the friction power obtained in the measurement carried out before. So, the friction power produced by the camshaft is equal to 22.22W, by the top and second compression rings are 12.32 W and 13.88 W, respectively and by the oil control ring is 10.67 W. The modification made to the piston also showed to be efficient in terms of friction reduction and that is equal to a reduction of 12.85 W. The values produced by the measurements are in agreement to the bibliography ones, when is considered a Honda GX35 engine. The contribution of each element to the total power friction is consistent to those ones yet published and obtained by other methods of measuring. They can be used in future studies with the goal of improving the energy efficiency of engines.

5.

LUZ, D. K. Projeto e Construo de Clula de Carga para Medio de Fora. ULBRA, 2009.

CONTACT INFORMATION
Dr. Marilia Amaral da Silveira marilia.amaral@ulbra.br Dr. Luiz Carlos Gertz gertzx@gmail.com Dr. Andr Cervieri acervieri@gmail.com M.E. Antnio Flvio Aires Rodrigues antonio.ulbra@gmail.com Eng. Mrcio Senger marcio_senger@yahoo.com.br Lutheran University of Brazil ULBRA Av. Farroupilha, 8001 Bairro So Jos Canoas-RS, Brazil CEP 92425-900 Phone number:+55 51 4377 9220

REFERENCES
1. 2. HEYWOOD, J. B. Internal Combustion Engine Fundamentals. McGraw Hill, Inc: New York, 1988. BLAXILL, H.; READER, S.; MACKAY, S.; LERCH, B.; RUECKAUF, J. Development of Friction Optimized Engine. SAE International, v.1052, 2008. GARRETT, T. K.; NEWTON, K.; STEEDS, W. The Motor Vehicle. Butterworth Heinemann: Oxford, 2001. PULKRABEK, W. W. Engineering Fundamentals of the Internal Combustion Engine. Prentice Hall: New Jersey, [N/A].

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank to the Lutheran University of Brazil ULBRA for supporting the research, whose results are presented in this paper.

3. 4.