Effect of Lubricant Degradation on Contact Fatigue

It is well known that contact fatigue is affected by contact pressure, frictional stress, residual stress, initial distribution of material flaws, and so on. The behavior of contact pressure and, primarily, the frictional stress is determined by the viscous properties of the lubricant used. It is also recognized that lubricants degrade while passing through lubricated contacts. Degradation of lubricants causes viscosity loss that, in turn, reduces the frictional stress and raises contact fatigue life. The objective of this study was to find out the extent to which lubricant degradation may change contact fatigue life of elastic surfaces completely separated by lubricant. The analysis was performed numerically based on the models of contact fatigue and lubricant degradation recently developed by the author. The results showed that contact fatigue life of solids completely separated by lubricants with the same ambient viscosity may vary significantly due to the specific way lubricants are formulated. In particular, contact fatigue life is strongly affected by the initial molecular weight distribution of the polymeric additive (viscosity improver) in the lubricant and contact operating conditions, which in some cases promote fast lubricant degradation caused by high lubricant shearing stresses.     

The Effect of Scale-Dependent Hardness on Elasto-Plastic Asperity Contact between Rough Surfaces

Statistical methods are used to model elasto-plastic contact between two rough surfaces using a recent finite element model of elasto-plastic hemispherical contact and also recent advances in strain gradient modeling. The elasto-plastic hemispherical contact model used to model individual asperities accounts for a varying hardness effect due to deformation of the contact geometry that has been documented by other works. The strain gradient model accounts for changes in hardness due to scaling effects. The contact between surfaces with hypothetical material and surface properties, such as the elastic modulus, yield strength, and roughness are modeled. A model is also constructed to consider a variable asperity contact radius to evaluate if the strain gradient model will affect it differently. The models produce predictions for contact area, contact force, and surface separation. The strain gradient effects decrease the real area of contact and increase the average contact load in comparison to the model without these effects. The strain gradient model seems to have a larger influence on the predictions of contact load and area than does considering a variable asperity contact radius for the cases considered in this work.     

The Scale Effect of Roughness on Hydrodynamic Contact Friction

Multistage abrasive finishing processes (grinding, polishing, honing, etc.) are commonly used to produce the geometrical properties of a surface to meet its technical functionalities in the operating characteristics of contacting parts in friction, relating to their durability and reliability (running-in performance, wear resistance, load-carrying capacity, etc.). Coarse abrasive grits followed progressively finer ones are used, which leads to a multiscale stratified surface texture.

In this article, a numerical model of elastohydrodynamic (EHD) contact coupled to a multiscale surface texture model was developed that allows tracking the scale effect of surface features and their interactions on friction performance and lubricant flow under hydrodynamic lubrication conditions. Because the simulation model has as an input the surface topography and to overcome the variability in surface finish formation, textured surfaces at different stages of the finishing process were simulated (virtual texturing method). Surface topography can be decomposed into two principal components: superficial roughness and valleys. Superficial roughness was modeled using a fractal model and a scaling factor was introduced to model valley patterns. The results show the relationship between friction and surface scales.     

静态接触中表面纹理对塑性变形界面微凸体平坦化的影响

试验研究了静态接触中表面纹理对塑性变形界面微凸体平坦化的影响。运用抛光技术制备了两种试件表面:单向纹理表面和各向同性表面。采用HDM-20端面摩擦试验机,分别在有、无润滑油条件下对试件进行了压缩试验。用JM-6200型光学显微镜观测试件表面形貌结构的变化;用Talysurf CCI Lite测量三维表面参数,并选取S_a、S_(al)、S_(tr)、S_(dr)和S_(dq)等参数来定量描述试件表面形貌结构的变化。结果表明,试件表面纹理对微凸体平坦化行为具有明显的影响,无润滑油时各向同性表面微凸体平坦化程度大于单向纹理表面,但有润滑油时刚好相反;表面纹理对微凸体平坦化的影响使得三维表面参数发生了规律性变化。基于机械流变模型的分析表明,封闭润滑油坑的出现导致了有润滑油时表面纹理影响微凸体平坦化行为。通过封闭润滑油坑特征的提取,验证了分析的正确性。     

表面粗糙度对滑动电接触磨损率的影响

在电气化铁路弓网系统中,磨损率是衡量列车运行状态与接触导线使用状态的重要指标。为了充分模拟弓网系统中磨损率情况,利用自行搭建的滑动电接触摩擦磨损试验机对滑板和接触导线进行摩擦磨损试验,分析滑板表面粗糙度、法向压力、接触电流与运行速度对磨损率的影响。得出结论:滑板磨损率随滑板初始表面粗糙度、接触电流、法向压力、运行速度的增加而增加,而高载荷下粗糙度对于磨损率的影响降低;滑板摩擦从磨合期进入稳定摩擦期存在一个临界表面粗糙度,当滑板初始表面粗糙度值等于临界粗糙度值时,其磨损率最低;不同初始表面粗糙度的滑板在跑合期内磨损过程不同,在稳定摩擦期内磨损过程趋于一致,且摩擦试验后滑板表面粗糙度也接近。     

Investigation of Flying-Height Stability of Thermal Fly-Height Control Sliders in Lubricant or Solid Contact with Roughness

When the magnetic spacing in hard disk drives is reduced to sub-3 nm, contact between the slider and disk becomes inevitable. Stability analysis is used in this study to investigate the head–disk interface (HDI) stability of thermal fly-height control (TFC) sliders in light contact with the disk lubricant or solid roughness. We implement an improved DMT model with sub-boundary lubrication into the CML air bearing program and analyze the stability of equilibrium states of a TFC slider under different thermal actuations. It is found that stability is lost when the slider penetrates deeper into the lubricant layer, due to a fast growth in the adhesion force, and it is restored when the solid roughness contact develops. In addition, the critical point for the onset of this instability and the range of this instability region is found to vary with lubricant thickness and protrusion surface steepness, while keeping the air bearing design the same.     

The Effect of Asperity Flattening During Cyclic Normal Loading of a Rough Spherical Contact

The effect of asperity flattening of a rough spherical contact during cyclic loading is investigated experimentally. Two types of surfaces are examined; the first is an “as-manufactured” isotropic surface and the second a smooth “laser-polished” surface. Both the surfaces exhibit a large amount of hysteresis of the load–displacement curve during the first load–unload cycles. This hysteresis is found to decrease as a function of the number of load cycles. A comparison of the experimental results with results obtained from a numerical model for a rough spherical contact shows good correlation. The model shows that for rough surfaces the total displacement is a function of the contacting asperities while for smooth surfaces the main contribution comes from the bulk displacement.     

表面粗糙度对点接触弹流润滑性能的影响

本文应用多重网格法对椭圆接触的部分膜弹流问题进行了完全数值求解，计算中采用了Ｐａｔｉｒ－ｃｈｅｎｇ的平均流量模型及Ｇｅｅｎｗｏｏｄ和Ｔｒｉｐｐ的表面微峰弹性接触模型。在大量数值计算结果的基础上分析了表面粗糙度大小及纹理方向对点弹流的油膜厚度及微峰接触载荷的影响。     

考虑蠕变特性的橡胶微凸体与金属表面接触特性分析

金属-橡胶接触广泛存在于密封结构中,密封接触表面上微凸体间的相互作用会直接影响整个密封界面的接触特性,进而影响其密封性能。基于粗糙密封界面的单个微凸体,考虑橡胶的蠕变特性,采用理论分析和仿真研究相结合的方式研究橡胶微凸体与金属表面的接触特性。通过橡胶蠕变特性的实验结果,构建橡胶蠕变计算模型;构建半球微凸体与金属平板间的有限元模型,进行考虑蠕变特性的仿真,分析其接触特性,并与Hertz接触理论的计算值进行对比。结果表明：在蠕变阶段,接触半径、法向变形量和最大等效蠕变应变均随蠕变时间的增加而增大,最大接触压力随蠕变时间增大而减小,这均可能导致密封性能的下降;随压力载荷的增大,接触半径、法向变形量、最大接触压力和最大等效蠕变应变均增大,但增大的趋势逐渐减小;橡胶微凸体与金属表面间的等效模量随蠕变时间的增加而减小,随压力载荷增大而增大。     

Effects of Friction on the Contact and Deformation Behavior in Sliding Asperity Contacts

Finite-element analyses are carried out to study the effects of friction on the contact and deformation behavior of sliding asperity contacts. In the analysis, on elastic-perfectly-plastic asperity is brought in contact with a rigid flat at a given normal approach. Two critical values of the normal approach are used to describe the asperity deformation. One is the approach corresponding to the point of initial plastic yielding, and the other at the point of full plastic flow. Additional variables used to characterize the deformation behavior include the shape and size of the plastic zone and the asperity contact size, pressure, and load capacity. Results from the finite-element analysis show that the two values of critical normal approach decrease significantly as the friction in the contact increases, particularly the approach that causes plastic flow of the asperity. The size of the plastically deformed zone is reduced by the friction when the contact becomes fully plastic. The reduction is very considerable with a high friction coefficient, and the plastic deformation is largely confined to a small thin surface layer. For a low friction coefficient, the contact size, pressure and load capacity of the asperity are not very sensitive to the friction coefficient. For a moderate friction coefficient, the contact pressure is reduced and the junction size increased; the load capacity of the asperity is not significantly affected due to the compensating effects of the pressure reduction and the junction growth. For a high friction coefficient, the pressure-junction compensation is not longer sufficient and the asperity load capacity is reduced. The degree of the friction effects on these contact variables depends on the applied force or the normal approach. Although the analyses are conducted using a line-contact model, the authors believe that the effects of friction in sliding asperity contacts of three-dimensional geometry are essentially the same and the same conclusions would have been reached. These results may provide some guidance to the modeling of rough surfaces in boundary lubrication, in which the asperity friction coefficient can be high and vary significantly both in time and from one micro-contact to another.     

Improved Elastic Contact Model Accounting for Asperity and Bulk Substrate Deformation

An improved elastic contact model for a single asperity system is proposed accounting for both the effects of bulk substrate and asperity deformations. The asperity contact stiffness is based on the Hertzian solution for spherical contact, and the bulk substrate stiffness on the solution of Hertzian pressure on a circular region of the elastic half-space. Depending on the magnitude of the applied load, as well as the geometrical and physical properties of the asperity and bulk materials, the bulk substrate could have considerable contribution to the overall contact stiffness. The proposed single asperity model is generalized using two parameters based on physical and geometrical properties, and is also verified using finite element analysis. A parametric study for a practical range of geometric and physical parameters is performed using finite element analysis to determine the range of validity of the proposed model and also to compare it with the Hertz contact model. The single asperity model is extended to rough surfaces in contact and the contact stiffness from the proposed model and the simpler Greenwood–Williamson asperity model are compared to experimental measurements.     

Surface Roughness Effects on Metallic Contact and Friction

A study was made of surface roughness effects on metallic contact and friction in the transition zone between hydrodynamic and boundary lubrication. The system used was one of pure sliding and relatively high contact stress, namely a fixed steel ball riding on a rotating steel cylinder.

It was found that very smooth and very rough surfaces gave less metallic contact than surfaces of intermediate roughness; very smooth surfaces also gave less friction.

Four different types of antiwear/antifriction additives (including tricresyl phosphate) were studied and although they were found to reduce metallic contact and friction, they had little effect in reducing surface roughness. Rather, the additives merely slowed down the wearing-in process of the base oil. Thus, the “chemical polishing” mechanism advanced for the antiwear behavior of tricresyl phosphate appears to be incorrect.

With rough surfaces, the improvement in load-carrying capacity with increasing viscosity was less than that shown previously with smooth surfaces. Also, oils with a large pressure-viscosity coefficient did not show the expected beneficial effect with rougher surfaces.     

The Effect of Surface Roughness on Contact Fatigue Behavior Using Mesoscopic Approach

The effect of surface roughness on the contact fatigue was investigated in this study. To accomplish this goal, contact analysis based on the influence functions and the rectangular patch solutions was performed to obtain the subsurface stress. Mesoscopic multiaxial fatigue criterion is then applied to predict fatigue damage. Rainbow counting method and damage rule were used to evaluate the fatigue life under random loadings caused by the rough surface contact. As a result of the fatigue analysis, the relationship among the fatigue life, the crack initiation depth, and the surface roughness were revealed. It is observed that the fatigue life has hardly changed and a crack is initiated at subsurface for the surface with the surface roughness below a critical value. However, if the surface roughness exceeds the critical value, fatigue life is remarkably reduced and the site of crack initiation moves to the near surface.     

Effect of Molecularly Thin Lubricant on Roughness and Adhesion of Magnetic Disks Intended for Extremely High-Density Recording

For extremely high-density recording using conventional technologies, the fly-height needs to decrease to less than ten nanometers. To allow such operation, disk and slider surfaces must become extremely smooth, down to root-mean-square (RMS) roughness values of a few angstroms. For super-smooth disks, molecularly thin lubricants are applied to improve tribological performance of head/disk interfaces. The focus of this study is to quantify the effect of lubricant thickness in terms of detailed roughness parameters and to evaluate the effect of roughness and molecularly thin lubricant on adhesion of magnetic disks intended for extremely high-density recording. Three identical ultra-low-flying disks have been fabricated from the same batch for this particular experiment. To investigate the effect of molecularly thin lubricants on disk roughness, super-smooth magnetic disks with increasing lubricant thickness have been measured and studied, using a primary roughness parameter set. It describes amplitude, spatial, hybrid, and functional aspects of surface roughness and is used to quantify the extremely smooth disk roughness as a function of lubricant thickness. It is found that in addition to simple amplitude parameters, hybrid and functional parameters also capture small features on the disk roughness and show distinct trends with increasing lubricant thickness. Subsequently, a continuum-based adhesion model that uses three parameters from the primary roughness parameter set, is used to predict how the varying thickness of molecularly thin lubricant and the resulting disk roughness affect intermolecular forces at ultra-low-flying head-disk interfaces. It is found that a thicker lubricant layer of 2nm causes higher adhesion forces for ultra-low-flying-heights in the range of 1–3 nm     

Effect of Tangential Traction and Roughness on Crack Initiation/Propagation During Rolling Contact

Rolling-fatigue tests of 0.45 percent carbon steel rollers were carried out using a four-roller-type rolling-contact fatigue tester. Tangential traction and surface roughness of the harder mating rollers were varied and their effect was studied. The results of the study indicate that the fatigue life decreases when traction is applied in the same direction as that of rolling. When the direction of traction is reversed, the life increases over that obtained with zero traction. The roughness of harder mating rollers also has a marked influences on life. The smoother the mating roller, the longer the life. Microscopic observation of specimens revealed that the initiation of cracks during the early stages of life is more strongly influenced by the surface roughness, while the propagation of these cracks in the latter stages is affected mainly by the tangential traction.     

考虑粗糙度效应的微孔化机械密封摩擦副接触特性分析

针对机械密封装置在启停阶段或某些特定工况下出现高温以及摩擦磨损严重等问题,探究考虑粗糙度效应的微孔化机械密封端面接触压力及温升的变化规律,以揭示机械密封端面的真实接触状态。基于分形理论建立机械密封静环粗糙表面和动环微孔接触模型,采用数值计算方法,研究微孔对机械密封端面接触压力和温升的影响,以及表面粗糙度对机械密封端面接触面积、接触压力、温升的影响。结果表明：微凸体经过微孔时,微凸体嵌入微孔边缘使得接触压力峰值增大,导致切削发生;摩擦过程中,压力最高点位置因为微凸体的弹塑性变形而不固定,改善了微凸体的受力情况;微孔降低了密封端面的接触面积,从而使得微凸体的接触减少、压力极值点减少,降低了密封端面摩擦副的温度,改善了密封端面的磨损状况;表面粗糙度越小,接触面积越大,接触压力、端面温度更加均匀,表面粗糙度越大,端面磨损风险更加严重。     

基于三维形貌重建的镗加工表面粗糙度检测

以计算机显微视觉为检测手段,采用明暗恢复形状方法重建加工表面微观形貌,进而检测加工表面粗糙度.根据微观金属表面反射特性,采用基于Torrance-Sparrow光照模型的明暗恢复形状算法,完成了镗加工表面图像三维形貌重构与表面粗糙度参数检测.     

Effects of Surface Roughness on Point Contact EHL

The effects of orientation of surface roughness, entrainment (rolling) velocity, and slide/roll ratio on micro-elastohydrodynamic lubrication (micro-EHL) are investigated under pointcontact conditions using the optical interferometry technique. Long bumps with constant height and wavelength produced artificially on the surface of a highly polished steel ball are used as a model roughness. It is shown that the asperities are elastically deformed and the magnitude depends on the film factor A, defined by the ratio of the central film thickness based on smooth surfaces to the composite surface roughness, as well as the surface kinematic conditions and the orientation of the asperities. It is also found that a thin or thick oil film formed at the inlet of the contact by a moving rough surface travels through the contact region at a speed very close to the average speed of the contacting surfaces. The possible mechanism is discussed.     

表面粗糙度三维评定的研究

对表面粗糙度的三维评定进行了研究。给出了基准面的构造方法 ,三维评定参数的定义及算法 ;最后对实测零件数据分别进行二维和三维评定 ,对评定结果加以比对 ,反映出三维评定的整体特性。     

A Transient Dynamic Analysis of Mechanical Seals Including Asperity Contact and Face Deformation

Face seals are typically designed to be in contact at standstill. However, as speed and pressure build up, the seal faces deform from their factory flat conditions because of viscous and dry friction heating, as well as mechanical and centrifugal effects. It is imperative that such deformations form a converging gap for radial flow to ensure stable operation and to promote favorable dynamic tracking between stator and rotor. A numerical simulation is presented for the transient response of a face seal that is subjected to forcing misalignments while speeds and pressures are ramped up and down. Asperity contact forces and transient face deformation caused by viscous heating are included. A new closed-form solution is obtained for the elastoplastic contact model, which allows seamless transition between contacting and noncontacting modes of operation. The model is then used to calculate face contact forces that occur predominantly during startup and shutdown. The viscous heating model shows that the time-dependent deformation (coning) is hereditary and that it lags behind the instantaneous heat generation. The dynamic analysis provides a numerical solution for the seal motion in axial and angular modes. The eventual build up of hydrostatic pressure and coning during startup generates opening forces and moments that separate the seal faces, resulting in noncontacting operation. The reverse occurs during shutdown; however, because of the thermal time constant a seal may continue to leak even after it returns to standstill. The analysis and simulation results compare very well with a closed-form solution that predicts a critical speed of separation of contacting seals.