1. Introduction
Recently aluminum alloys are being used as a material for engine blocks to reduce car weight. This
helps to solve the global warming problem, which has been the most important industrial development
since Kyoto Protocol. Aluminum engine blocks – particularly their inner surfaces – suffer from wear
and heat. Here, a novel hard surfacing process is proposed decreasing those problems and preliminary
experimental work is reported.
One of the conventional remedies is to use cast iron inner cylinder as a cast-in insertion to give a
hardened and self-lubricated layer. However, this process has the limitation of process-complexity and
also there is recycling problem with cast iron and aluminum. To solve these problems, it is suggested
to harden the inner surface by using an aluminum-base alloys using a novel hard surfacing process.