Experimental investigation of porous bearings under different lubricant and lubricating conditions

The performance of porous bearing under different lubricants and lubricating conditions was experimentally investigated in this study. In order to carry out the experiments, a new test rig was designed to determine the tribological properties of based sintered bronze journal bearings that were manufactured by powder metallurgy (P/M) techniques. To determine the effects of lubricating conditions with and without oil supplement (OS) on the tribological characteristics of these bearings under static loading and periodic loadings, some experiments were carried out using different lubricants. In the tests, pure base oil (SAE 20W50), two fully formulated commercial engine oils (SAE20W50) and lubricating oils with commercial additive concentration ratio of3% were used. The worn surfaces of test bearings were examined using optical microscopy. Experimental results showed that the change in friction coefficient was more stable and in smaller magnitude under static loading than that of periodic loading. In addition, the friction coefficient and the wear rate conducted with base oil resulted in higher values than those of fully formulated oils with and without OS lubricating conditions. The experimental results obtained in this study indicated that the correct selection of lubricant and suitable running conditions were very important on the tribological characteristics of porous bearings.