Abstract
The diesel fuel injector and pump systems contain many sliding interfaces that rely for lubrication upon the fuels. The combination of the poor fuel lubricity and extremely tight geometric clearance between the plunger and bore makes the diesel fuel injector vulnerable to scuffing damage that severely limits the engine life. In order to meet the upcoming stricter diesel emission regulations and higher engine efficiency requirements, further fuel refinements that will result in even lower fuel lubricity due to the removal of essential lubricating compounds, more stringent operation conditions, and tighter geometric clearances are needed. These are expected to increase the scuffing and wear vulnerability of the diesel fuel injection and pump systems. In this chapter, two approaches are discussed to address this issue: (1) increasing fuel lubricity by introducing effective lubricity additives or alternative fuels, such as biodiesel, and (2) improving the fuel injector scuffing-resistance by using advanced materials and/or surface engineering processes. The developing status of the fuel modification approach is reviewed to cover topics including fuel lubricity origins, lubricity improvers, alternative fuels, and standard fuel lubricity tests. The discussion of the materials approach is focused on the methodology development for detection of the onset of scuffing and evaluation of the material scuffing characteristics.
