Numerical simulation of the tribological behavior of cylinder liners containing hybrid textures (stochastic dimples and honing grooves)

Abstract This work aims to optimize the surface textures of two-stroke engine cylinder liners through numerical simulation. A mirror-like liner with stochastic texture patterns resulting from localized ‘peak outs’ formed in the honing step of hard chrome coating was used as the reference surface. Honing grooves were digitally superimposed onto the reference surface, and the effects of the groove crossing angle ( α ), depth ( d p ), width ( w ), and density ( d e ) on the mixed lubrication and friction behavior of the piston/cylinder liner tribosystem were evaluated. The simulations used a deterministic modelling approach that couples a hydrodynamic model with an asperity contact model at the microscopic roughness scale. The optimal simulation results were obtained for grooves with α = 40°, d e = 0.15, w = 15 μm and d p = 1.5 μm. However, even the most favorable textured configuration showed inferior lubrication performance compared to the reference surface. These findings suggest that the stochastic texture resulting from mirror-like honing already provides advantageous lubrication conditions, making the addition of honing grooves unnecessary for the cylinder liners analyzed in this study.