Oil Film Thickness Measurement of Engine Bearing and Cam/tappet Contact in an Automotive Engine

The capacitance technique was used to measure the minimum oil film thickness in engine bearing and the central oil film thickness between cam and tappet. This method is based on the measurement of total capacitance of oil film. For the measurement of the oil film thickness between cam and tappet, two surfaces were assumed to be flat and parallel within the Hertzian region and all the measured capacitance originated from this region. Shear rates from the measured minimum oil film thickness are over 10$^{6}$ sec$^{-1}$ in the greater part in both two cases. The minimum oil film thickness in engine bearing is larger than the surface roughness. Between cam and tappet it is mostly smaller than the surface roughness. In spite of the awkward restriction of the reliability of measured oil film thickness, it was known that the capacitance technique makes it possible to measure the oil film thickness in elastohydrodynamic and mixed lubrication regimes as well as in hydrodynamic regime. Therefore, it is also possible to classify the lubrication regimes based on the oil film thickness.