The characteristic of a lubricant is important under severe running condition.
Especially on diesel engines the better lubrication performance is required due to the extreme condition such as high temperature and pressure by combustion process in a combustion chamber.
Many research works for improving a boundary lubrication performance have been studied by using solid lubricants, and have been tried to apply solid lubricants to an engine. However those general lubricants like MoS2 or PTFE have not been applied on engines due to the extreme conditions such as very high temperature and pressure by combustion process in a cylinder.
Recently, the solid lubricant containing a copper nickel alloy has been introduced and studied.
In this report the lubricant containing the metal alloy particles is applied on wear test machines and diesel engines. The lubricant is assessed by mechanical characteristic test and by engine performance test. The results by mechanical characteristic test show the decrease of the coefficient of friction and oil temperature. The results by engine test show the decrease of X-axis and Y-axis amplitude which strongly effect on engine vibration and the decrease of torque related strongly to the engine efficiency as well as the improvement of the engine lubrication performance.
In the engine performance test, the results were manifested as shown the increase of maximum torque, and the decrease of cylinder pressure, exhaust gas temperature, scavenging air temperature, CO emission according to running time lapse at various speed and torque on a diesel engine.
It is clear that the lubricant containing the copper nickel alloy nano-powder decreases friction and wear, increases the sealing effect between a cylinder and piston rings and also improves engine performances.