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Steel would have to be glowing bright yellow with heat before a heavy hammer could make any dent in it. Metal hardness is therefore a factor directly affecting the rate of Brinelling. In a Piston engine, the valve heads are taking the Blacksmith's place, doing the hammering on the valve seats. The softer those valve seats are, the more they will change in shape as their metal flows. As in the Blacksmith's Forge, it is clear that the rate of Brinelling can be accelerated by more heating of the valve seat and valve steam /head. To carry the useful Blacksmith analogy a little further, the effect of Brinelling can be increased by using more force or a heavier hammer (which amounts to the same thing). Engine designers would like to make their valves as light as possible in order to reduce the force although they have to be made of enough metal to do their job adequately. One way of reducing the force exerted on a valve seat by the valve head (the Hammer) is to use two valves to do the job of one. This will almost halve the weight of individual valve heads. This solution is demonstrated in engines having 3 or 4 valves per cylinder (called Desmodromics). Many think that 3 or 4 valves per cylinder are used to improve the 'breathing' or gas flow of an engine where, in fact, the method is used to reduce the weight of the valve heads and thus reduce the force exerted on their valve seats. If this design solution is used it will minimise the effect of Brinelling and retard the onset of VSR. Erosion (factor 2) This effect cannot be avoided by using any pure fuel, it is purely a mechanical problem which can only be overcome by stopping the valve heads and stems rotating. Efforts to resolve this problem are made by engine designers, the most common solution is to use two springs with opposing helixes. Because one spring must be smaller in diameter than the other (one spring must fit inside another in an axial fashion) then the turning forces cannot be totally balanced and valve head/stem rotation will still take place but it will be reduced. Another partial solution for Erosion is found in lubrication of the valve head and seat. If we apply lubrication to surfaces that are eroding each other then less molecules will be worn off each surface. Lead used to be added to petrol because it provided a form of lubrication for the valve head and seat sealing faces. Nowadays, Lead is not added to Petrol so that lubrication benefit is gone. Microwelding (factor 3) Metallurgy shows us that any two similar metals that are truly clean (right down to a molecular level) will begin to stick back together if left touching for any length of time. The longer they are left this way (when the engine is not running), the more similar the metals are and the cleaner their surfaces are, the more quickly they will begin to Microweld. When two Microwelded surfaces are pulled apart, molecules of metal are pulled from both, resulting in surface damage. After prolonged surface damage due to Microwelding the valve head and seat may not produce a gas tight seal any more. The simplest way to prevent or retard Microwelding is to add 'Dirt' to the surfaces of the two pieces of metal. That 'Dirt' could be the Oil we use to stop things siezing up, it could be Polish or Paint of some kind, it could also be the Soot produced by burning some fuels. It is convenient that Petrol combustion produces lots of carbon (Soot) whereas it is a little inconvenient that LPG burns much cleaner than Petrol and does not leave Carbon deposits. Thus, the cleaner combustion of LPG and other fuels (CNG for instance) can actually promote Microwelding.
Microwelding
In essence, valve wear will occur slightly more quickly when running on LPG simply because it burns much more cleanly. There is no Soot or Dirt to prevent the occurrence of Microwelding. Don't let that worry you, this effect alone is very small. We are still talking about Valve life that is often longer than the life of the car. Microwelding can be avoided, at least in part, by having the valve head and seat made out of metals that are as dissimilar as possible. Carbon steel valves and Stellite seats provide a good solution here. Another weapon in our anti-Microwelding arsenal is provided by fuel additives such as 'Flashlube'. These come in the form of light Oil which, if introduced in the correct dosage can lubricate the valve head/seat faces and prevent Erosion. Also worth mentioning is that the Flashlube oil will eventually burn. When it does, it will replace the missing Soot (Carbon) that can do a lot to prevent Microwelding. Injection of these tiny amounts of oil must have some cooling effect on the valves (like petrol does) although it is probably so small as to make no difference to valve temperatures. A word of warning here - If a modern engine is Overdosed with Flashlube or similar, its exhaust emissions may well be compromised and damage to the catalytic converter will probably result.
The Upshot
It would be wrong to heap the blame for VSR on LPG. If an engine's valves are truly fit to run on modern unleaded petrol (for any reasonable length of time) they are good enough to run on LPG with no additional problems. It must be remembered that all of the effects described above still happen when running an engine on Unleaded Petrol. The plain fact is that ALL engine valves will reach the end of their useful life at some point. Nothing lasts forever, although harder valves and seats made of quite different materials will definately last longer when running on any fuel.