Numerical Study on Fretting Wear of Mating Surface Between Piston Crown and Skirt in Heavy Duty Diesel Engine

Composite pistons are often used in heavy duty diesel engines due to its good reliability and durability. Owing to the alternating loads, fretting wear usually happens on the mating surfaces between piston crown and skirt. In this paper, a fretting wear finite element model is developed to analyze the mating surface wear of composite piston of heavy duty diesel engine. The fretting wear model predicts the wear depth evolution for each working cycle based on Archard model and mesh updating technique, which is validated by previous pin and disk contact experiments. The wear evolution of the top contact surface of piston skirt is simulated according to engine operating condition, and fretting wear life is estimated by the decreasing process of crown-skirt connecting bolt preload. Effects of the shape of piston skirt top surface is also evaluated. In the end, the rationality of fretting wear model is validated by durability tests of diesel engine.