Increasing the reliability of marine main engines-An experimental study on magnetoresistance monitoring for piston ring wear

The reliability of ship's power systems plays an important pole in the safe navigation of ships, in which, the reliability of main engines, which is the “heart” of ships), is one of the most crucial factors. Therefore, it is of great necessity and significance to realize the monitoring failure of ship's main engines in order to ensure that they can work properly. In view of this, this research proposed a method for the online monitoring piston ring wear of marine main engines based on the magnetic sensor technology. To verify the proposed method, a piston ring wear test bed was built, and the wear test of piston ring of two main engines with different cylinder diameter was carried out accordingly. Meanwhile, the magneto resistance signals of the two piston rings in different wear conditions were collected and analyzed comparatively. The results show that, firstly, both of the wear conditions of the two piston rings have a one-to-one correspondence with the characteristic values of the magneto-resistance signal; secondly, with the increase of the wear volume, the peak value of the magneto resistance signal shows an upward trend, thus verifying the effectiveness and adaptability of this method in terms of online monitoring wear of piston ring. The proposed method has the advantages of online, fast response and convenient use. This research provides a good reference for the whole-life monitoring of piston rings of main engines and the condition-based maintenance of main engines on board ships as well.