· Hybrid thermal spray coatings with self-lubricant properties for wear protection of Internal Combustion Engine piston rings (HYSELFDROPS)
HYSELFDROPS is a 36 months national project starting in summer 2020 and has a budget of about 600.000€.
The proposal HYSELFDROPS is targeting to the development of innovative techniques towards the deposition of hybrid self-lubricating coatings using thermal spray techniques. The proposed innovation lies in the combined self lubricating & anti-wear thermally sprayed coatings that will be developed. This will be realized with the presence within the coating mass of solid (nanomaterials) and/or liquid lubricants (oils microencapsulated in polymers). The proposed hybrid coatings are expected to contribute to significant energy loss reduction of diesel engines due to wear and abrasion for marine applications which contributes in the fuel consumption reduction as well as in the operating and maintenance costs. These coatings present the additional advantage of avoiding toxic chemical substances release to the environment unlike liquid lubricants. Scale up activities in terms of feedstock materials production as well as thermally sprayed real parts (piston rings) for field testing will be performed. The coated piston rings will be implemented in a three cylinder Yanmar 3YM30 diesel engine producing 21.3 kW maximum power at 3200 rpm for marine applications.
The HYSELFDROPS consortium comprises of the following participants:
- Shipbuilding Technology Laboratory, (STL), NTUA School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering
- Laboratory of Polymer Technology, NTUA School of Chemical Engineering
- MIRTEC S.A.
- Marine Performance Tuning, (MPT)