CLUB OF ATHOLISTS
STEEL BETTER PIG IRON
Now in Europe, every third car coming off the assembly line is equipped with steel piston rings. But what about Russian factories? The successful development of one of them is presented by Boris SINELNIKOV.
As research shows and confirms operating experience, special steel rings are better than ordinary cast iron rings to seal the gap between the piston and the cylinder mirror. And this means - higher compression, less oil waste and fuel consumption, cleaner exhaust, etc. In addition, the piston group's service life is longer.
These advantages encourage plants to switch to steel rings. Leading manufacturers - the well-known in our country firms Goetze (Germany), Rikon (Japan) and others are rapidly increasing the production of rings from steel strip.
Our specialized factories so far make only composite oil scraper rings from steel, and even that of an outdated design, and the compression ones are still cast iron. By the way, the manufacturing technology of the latter is quite laborious. First, individual billets are cast, the chemical composition and mechanical properties of which are strictly regulated. Then they are processed - first roughly, then finally, using high-precision boring. There are many operations, with most of the metal going to waste. To maintain a consistently high quality product is very difficult.
We have been working on the creation of the production of compression and oil scraper rings from steel tape for a long time. And only now real results have been achieved - in the city of Petushki, Vladimir Region, at the Stakol enterprise (Steel Rings), their production has begun. Wasteless technologies, unique equipment and quality control tools have been developed here. The starting material is wire made of special steel. It is flattened, cut, wound, rolled, dragged and heat-treated here. This allows you to form and maintain the integrity of the fiber structure on the working and inner edges of the ring. Strict control over all operations ensures stability of elastic and other properties, as well as dimensional accuracy.
A chrome coating is applied to the working edge of the compression rings, which provides high wear resistance of both the rings and the cylinder. The oil scraper kit consists of two chromed discs with a tangentially curved expander. He presses the discs not only to the mirror of the cylinder, but also to the walls of the groove. Its reliable fixation is provided by the original locking device. This ring is easier to install in the piston groove than the usual one. It is also important that the load on the spring turns of the expander is distributed evenly.
Stakol piston ring sets have been comprehensively tested and are used in the engines of the Volga, Gazelle, RAF, ZIL-130, ZIL-375, KamAZ, Tatra cars, and Ikarus buses. The production of rings for other cars is getting better. The results of their tests and the experience of long-term operation in comparison with serial cast-iron piston rings showed a marked reduction in engine oil consumption for waste; vehicle mileage without oil topping exceeded 10, 000 km; a decrease in fuel consumption was noted for both gasoline engines and diesel engines; finally, the resource of the piston group increased significantly by 1.5 … 2 times.
Also, the installation of these rings in the repair of engines with significant mileage and worn liners gives a great effect. Thin, flexible piston rings made of steel tape are well-developed to their mirror, which has an ovality and taper up to 0.15 mm!
After repair, such engines normally work another 150-200 thousand km. This was established by the operators in several large auto fleets in Moscow and the Vladimir region, where the Stakol rings were the first to use.
