Evidence of lubricant slip on steel surface in EHL contact

The limiting traction provided by typical elastohydrodynamically lubricated (EHL) contacts leads to the postulation that liquid lubricants are subject to limiting shear stress, which is generally accepted as an intrinsic property of the lubricants. The results of recent optical EHL research show that lubricant at EHL contacts may slip on the Cr-coated glass surface under certain circumstances. This paper presents further evidence that high pressure EHL film can slip on a steel surface. Because the steel/steel contacts are common in typical traction drives and the interfaces are therefore oil/steel, the deduction of the limiting shear stress of lubricants from the measured limiting traction may simply reflect a property of the system should boundary slippage occur.     

Study of Boundary Slippage Using Movement of a Post-Impact EHL Dimple Under Conditions of Pure Sliding and Zero Entrainment Velocity

A well-recognized phenomenon of typical traction tests of elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) contacts is finite maximum traction at increasing speeds, which led to the postulation that the limiting shear stress of liquid lubricants, a high-pressure rheological property, existed. If slippage occurs at the oil–solid boundary, the limiting traction measured is not necessarily an intrinsic property of the lubricant but rather a function of interfacial properties between the bounding solid surface and the lubricant. A recent report presented experimental evidence of boundary slippage at EHL contacts using a simple methodology based on differences in the speed of oil entrapment and the apparent entrainment. The reported experiments were carried out under pure sliding conditions. The phenomenon may also be explained by internal slippage in the bulk fluid film because of the limiting shear stress of the lubricant. To clarify this, similar experiments were repeated under zero entrainment velocity (ZEV) conditions. Evidence of the highly pressurized lubricant at the center of the oil entrapment sliding against the solid bounding surface was obtained. The purpose of this article is to discuss whether the slippage is attributed to the limiting shear stress of the oil or the critical shear stress of the oil/solid interfaces, and how to differentiate the magnitudes of the critical shear stress of the two bounding surfaces in a conventional optical EHL test rig.     

三维非牛顿体椭圆接触弹流润滑应力分布及其图示

对机械系统中常见滚滑点接触摩擦润滑耦合问题进行了三维弹性润滑的数值模拟分析，在分析了弹流中的各种流变模型之后，提出了粘塑性四次方型本构关系式。对弹流润滑中热效应和润滑剂的非牛顿体效应的耦合作用进行了分析，得到揭示润滑接触区内牵引力机理的三维切应力分布。由数值模拟研究了对疲劳分析有意义的接触体表层内应力场，得到了椭圆接触三维Ｍｉｓｅｓ应力分布。     

Effect of Base Oil Structure on Elastohydrodynamic Friction

The EHD friction properties of a wide range of base fluids have been measured and compared in mixed sliding–rolling conditions at three temperatures and two pressures. The use of tungsten carbide ball and disc specimens enabled high mean contact pressures of 1.5 and 2.0 GPa to be obtained, comparable to those present in many rolling bearings. The measurements confirm the importance of molecular structure of the base fluid in determining EHD friction. Liquids having linear-shaped molecules with flexible bonds give considerably lower friction than liquids based on molecules with bulky side groups or rings. EHD friction also increases with viscosity for liquids having similar molecular structures. Using pure ester fluids, it is shown that quite small differences in molecular structure can have considerable effects on EHD friction. The importance of temperature rise in reducing EHD friction at slide–roll ratios above about 5% has been shown. By measuring EHD friction at several temperatures and pressures as well as EHD film thickness, approximate corrections to measured EHD friction data have been made to obtain isothermal shear stress and thus EHD friction curves. These show that under the conditions tested most low molecular weight base fluids do not reach a limiting friction coefficient and thus shear stress. However, two high traction base fluids appear to reach limiting values, while three linear polymeric base fluids may also do so. Constants of best fit to a linear/logarithmic isothermal shear stress/strain rate relationship have been provided to enable reconstruction of isothermal EHD friction behaviour for most of the fluids tested.     

Stress Analysis on Layered Materials in Point Elastohydrodynamic-Lubricated Contacts

For multilayered or coated substrates in elastohydrodynamic-lubricated (EHL) contacts, the subsurface stress distributions under a normal load combined with shear traction have been analyzed in this article through computer simulations. The Papkovich-Neuber potentials and Fourier transform are adopted to deduce the pressure–displacement, pressure–stress, and shear traction–stress response functions in frequency domain for the coated substrates, and to calculate distributions of pressure and subsurface stress. The results from the analysis of EHL contacts on coated substrates are compared with those from dry contact model in which shear traction is assumed to obey Coulomb’s law. Effects of the Young’s modulus of coatings, the properties of lubricants, and the magnitude of traction are discussed. Similar to the results in dry contacts, hard coatings in lubricated cases tend to increase the von Mises stress, whereas soft coatings decrease the stress. Shear traction makes the max von Mises stress increasing and moving closer to surface. However, the changes in subsurface stress due to shear traction are less obvious in lubricated contacts. Comparison between EHL and dry contact models reveals that lubrication can reduce the von Mises stress in the coating layer due to smaller shear traction. The analyses show that pressure, film thickness, and subsurface stress distributions are influenced by surface coatings, sliding velocity, rheological models, and pressure–viscosity behaviors.     

Effect of EHL Contact Conditions on the Behavior of Traction Fluids

New infinitely variable transmission (IVT) systems are under development for the automotive industry as a means to achieving significant fuel economy benefits. These systems rely on the lubricating fluid to transmit the drive train loads across the interface of the transmission components. This requires the development of new fluids that exhibit high traction properties under elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) conditions. However, it has been reported recently that the traction performance of some fluids can reduce dramatically as temperature is reduced. This may place severe operational limits on IVT systems and suggests that the low-temperature traction properties of fluids for these systems should be studied in order to understand the mechanism for the observed reduction in traction.

The work reported here is an experimental study aimed at identifying whether low temperature traction reduction is related to a fundamental change in rheological behavior specific to the fluids tested or to more generic changes in the EHL contact conditions. A series of model experiments were performed using a mini traction machine (MTM) on three high-viscosity polybutene samples. The results have been mapped against previously reported non-dimensional parameters used to identify different EHL regimes. The results show that dramatic reductions in traction occur when the contact transitions from the rigid piezo-viscous (RP) toward the rigid iso-viscous (RI) region. Similar results were also found for two other high-viscosity fluids of different molecular structure and lower traction properties. The results support the hypothesis that the reduction in traction observed at low temperature is due to a change in EHL contact conditions rather than being solely due to a change in the rheological performance of the test fluids.     

极限剪切状态下的线接触Reynolds方程

本文导出了考虑极限剪切状态的线接触流变热弹流Reynolds方程,该方程以Evans—Johnson流变模型为基础,可用于求解线接触流变热弹流润滑问题的油膜厚度、压力分布、剪应力分布和牵曳系数曲线。计算实例表明,润滑油的流变特性对弹流润滑的油膜形状和压力分布影响不大,但对Hertz接触区的剪应力分布有显著影响。     

A simple non-linear constitutive equation for elastohydrodynamic oil films

In this paper a hypothetical constitutive relation for EHL oil films is proposed which combines a linear elastic response with a non-linear shear thinning viscous response. This model reduces to a linear Maxwell fluid for small strains. It is shown that provided the recoverable elastic strains are kept small (<0.3), which is generally the case for EHL contacts, the ambiguity of stress rate usually encountered with large total strains in viscoelasticity can be avoided. Hence this proposed constitutive law provides a simple Theologically acceptable basis for interpreting large strain EHD traction experiments.     

High-pressure behavior of toroidal CVT fluid for automobile

Practical toroidal-type continuously variable transmission (t-CVT) is subjected to extremely severe operating conditions, viz., maximum contact pressure is very high at 4 GPa, rolling speed exceeds over 30 m/s and lubricant temperature goes up over 140 °C. Traction measurements were recently made at wide range of contact pressures, oil temperatures and rolling speeds by USCAR Group. The objective of this research is to investigate high-pressure rheology of the traction characteristics at extremely severe EHL contact conditions. The effects of contact pressure and temperature on maximum traction coefficient were evaluated using the phase diagram and the liquid/solid transition lubrication diagram.     

Rheology of Perfluoropolyalkylether Fluids in Elastohydrodynamic Lubrication

The rheological characteristics of two branched and two linear, commercial perfluoropolyalkylether (PFPAE) fluids were studied under high pressures and temperatures. The effects of branching and carbon-to-oxygen (C:O) ratio on the pressure-viscosity-temperature behavior and on the non-Newtonian behavior of these fluids were studied experimentally under high pressures and temperatures. The branching and the higher C:O ratio seemed to increase the pressure-viscosity coefficients of these fluids. The effects of the viscosity and the pressure-viscosity coefficient on the capabilities of these fluids to generate elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) film thickness were studied and compared with experimental measurements. All of the fluids studied seemed to follow the Roelands viscosity model and classical EHL theory (1). The C:O ratio also influenced the temperature dependence of the limiting-shear-strength proportionality constant. The results show that for similar-viscosity fluids, the linear PFPAE with higher C:O ratio is most desirable for wide temperature use.