DLC solid lubricant coatings on ball bearings for space applications

The environment of space offers special challenges for the lubrication of components in sliding and rolling mechanisms. Hydrogenated diamond-like carbon (DLC) films are being studied as solid lubricant coatings to simultaneously fulfil specifications regarding wear resistance and low friction behaviour under ambient atmosphere and in vacuum.In this paper, the tribological behaviour of highly hydrogenated DLC coatings (50 at% hydrogen) is assessed. Coating composition was optimised on flat AISI 52100 steel substrates based on ball-on-disc tribotest results in air, vacuum and dry nitrogen environments. The developed DLC coatings can be tailored to yield ultra-low friction values in vacuum (μ=0.008). The average friction coefficient range obtained in humid air, dry nitrogen and vacuum for the range of applied loads were, respectively, 0.22 to 0.27, 0.02 to 0.03, and 0.007 to 0.013.New in this work is that optimised DLC coatings were applied to ball bearings for space applications. The torque and life tests of coated pairs of angular contact bearings in air revealed that relatively high bearing torques are generated which increase with time, but the amount of coating wear generated during in-air operation appears relatively light. In vacuum, low torques are generated after a prolonged running-in period. Low-torque life exceeds that observed for MoS₂ by a factor of about two. It is concluded that, in contrast to MoS₂ coated bearings, DLC-coated bearings for space applications might therefore be capable of undergoing in-air ground testing without too much disruption of the subsequent in-space performance.