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George Lendich wrote:
Are they really going to have ceramic coatings on the side housings?
I have nothing to suggest that they will, other than it being the most realistic choice. The other option is steel inserts. Steel inserts are doable, but they carry a lot of machining, joining and dissimilar metal baggage. The ceramics would be a cast/bake in place operation.
Ernest,
As much as I love ceramics for wear durability, I don't believe I would favour them for aviation application, as I've heard too many bad reports of ceramic coatings failures - paint me paranoid, Again!
My preferred coating would be Det-gun coating. I believe thick enough steel plating would negate some of the weight savings of aluminum.
Interestingly thin carbon steel housing were developed by Powersport before their demise, with weights equal (or similar) to that of aluminium - apparently they worked very well, but the wear surface would have to be well supported. Apparently all the aluminium housings they trialled were failures or too expensive to produce. I believe Mistral has some similar experience with aluminium housings but may have found a modified and denser aluminum whereby the substrate will withstand the loads from the side seals. It's the substrate failure which is one of the problems I am most concerned about with ceramics.
I hope Mazda has found the answer.
George (down under)
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