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The recent demands for higher performance and lower fuel consumption of automotive engines require the bearings to operate under severe conditions. One of the problems with conventional aluminum alloy bearings used under these conditions is the low wear resistance. A new aluminum alloy bearing that allows a higher wear resistance is developed by controlling Si particle size and lining hardness. The mechanism to upgrade the wear resistance are the concentration of enlarged Si particles on the sliding surface and to prevent falling off Si that are held by sufficient lining hardness. Wear resistance of this bearing is 4-5 times better compared with the conventional bearings and seizure resistance is two times better than the conventional bearings.

Aluminum alloy bearing with overlay, which was developed for automotive engine bearing material, has both advantages of conventional aluminum bearing and copper-lead bearing with overlay. This new bearing consists of four(4) layers of tin overlay, nickel intermediate layer, aluminum alloy lining and back steel. This paper reports that seizure, fatigue and wear resistance are improved in order to prevent nickel exposure which may easily seize on the entire sliding surface from the interface structure between the overlay and aluminum alloy and maintain low tin-nickel compound creation which is prepared by the intermediate layer due to heat from the overlay plating bath; which is also examined.

Recent diesel engines require higher performance and longer life. Due to high cylinder pressure, the operating load and temperature of piston pin bushings has become severe. Therefore, high load capacity and wear and corrosion resistance are required for piston pin bushings. To improve the corrosion resistance of copper bushing material, we studied the effects of adding elements to copper alloy. We found that the addition of nickel to copper reduces the sulfide corrosion of copper alloys. In addition, we were able to conclude that copper-nickel alloys can be produced by conventional sintering methods. We also attempted to improve wear resistance by adding hard particles into the copper matrix. The primary goal of the study was to determine the effects of hard particles on wear resistance and the machining process. We found that when a sort of hard particles are added to the copper matrix, the wear resistance improves, but the new matrix is more difficult to machine.