The Effects of Thermal Barrier Coatings on Diesel Engine Performance and Emission

The purpose of this paper is to determine the effect of coating thickness on performance and emission of a diesel engine including comparisons with results from an uncoated piston diesel engine. Primarily three piston crowns were coated with Al2O3 (bond coat) of 100 μm thickness each by using Plasma spray coating technique. Then these piston crowns were coated with partially stabilized zirconia with a thickness of 250, 350, 450 μm respectively by using the same technique over the bond coat. These pistons inserted into the cylinder of a diesel engine one by one to collect the combustion and emission data. Then these data were compared with standard diesel engine. It was observed that the thermal efficiency increased with increasing load levels, whereas specific fuel consumption reduced with increasing load. However, it was observed that harmful gases and particulates like CO, smoke and HC were reduced in case of all types of coated piston engine with the increase of load. Increased amount of NOX emission was reported during the experimentation.