Lubricants, Volume 5, Issue 3 (September 2017) – 18 articles

Modern small diameter metal-on-metal (MoM) bearings for total hip arthroplasty (THA) have been developed in the nineteen-eighties to address the problem of polyethylene wear related osteolysis. Subsequently large diameter MoM hip resurfacings (HRA) were designed for young and active patients to preserve bone and avoid dislocation. Large diameter MoM THA were originally meant as an easy femoral component-only revision solution for femoral neck fractures in HRA, but were then advocated for primary THA as well. In the last decade however, increasing numbers of revisions for adverse local tissues reactions (ALTR) to metal debris have been reported. These ALTR are due to excessive wear of the MoM bearings, usually related to malpositioning of the components leading to edge loading, or in rare cases to metal sensitivity. Besides the immunological reactions, metal particles and ions have a potential local and systemic toxicity. Wear and tribocorrosion at the taper-trunnion connections of MoM THA but also THA with polyethylene and ceramic bearings have also been recognized as a cause of ALTR with extensive tissue destruction. Despite the fact that the long-term survivorship and functional results of certain MoM HRA are excellent and better than THA in the young and active patients group, MoM bearings have become very unpopular and are likely to be replaced by bearing couples of other materials. Full article

The behavior of pools of water for lubrication under a point of contact between a glass disk and a steel ball is studied here, employing a home-built apparatus. A deformed water pool is found to form around the contact region under different rolling speeds. To investigate the effect of rolling speed on the water pool, two parameters (advancing angle and receding angle) are introduced to describe the shape of the water pool. Two distinct glass surfaces, namely a smooth surface and a microgrooved surface, are observed. In the case of the smooth surface, the advancing/receding angle of the water pool significantly decreases with increasing rolling speed before the rolling speed reaches a critical value (80 mm/s). At speeds higher than 80 mm/s, the water pool is in a stable state and the advancing/receding angle remains steady. In the case of the microgrooved surface, the influence of the microgroove on water lubricating flow disappears when the rolling speed reaches a critical value (1030 mm/s). Full article

Recording of Stribeck-like curves is a common way to study the effect of laser-patterned surfaces on the frictional efficiency. However, solely relying on the coefficient of friction when identifying the lubrication regime and the underlying working principles can be misleading. Consequently, a ball-on-disc tribometer was combined with an electrical resistivity circuit to simultaneously measure Stribeck-like curves and solid-solid contact ratios for polished and laser-patterned samples. Line-like surface patterns with different periodicities were produced by direct laser interference patterning on steel substrates (AISI304). The reference shows a Stribeck-like behavior well correlating with the contact ratios. The behavior deviates for high sliding velocities (high contact ratios) due to a loss of lubricant induced by centrifugal forces pulling the lubricant out of the contact zone. In contrast, the solid–solid contact ratio of the laser-patterned samples is around 80% for all sliding velocities. Those values can be explained by higher contact pressures and the structural depth induced by the surface topography which make a full separation of the surfaces unlikely. Despite those high values for the contact ratio, laser-patterning significantly reduces friction, which can be traced back to a reduced real contact area and the ability to store oil in the contact zone. Full article

The relationship between the film generation and the coefficient of friction in grease lubricated contacts was investigated. Ball-on-disc tests were performed under different operating conditions: entrainment speed, lubricant temperature and surface roughness. The tests were performed with fully formulated greases and their base oils. The greases were formulated with different thickener types and also different base oils natures and viscosities. Film thickness measurements were performed in ball-on-glass disc tests, and Stribeck curves were measured in ball-on-steel disc tests with discs of different roughness. The role of the thickener and the base oil nature/viscosity on the film thickness and coefficient of friction was addressed and the greases’ performance was compared based on their formulation. Full article

It is well established that the total protein concentration and albumin-to-globulin ratio influence the wear of ultra-high molecular polyethylene (UHMWPE, “polyethylene”) in joint prostheses. A factor on wear not yet studied, but of possible clinical relevance, is protein cleavage. Such cleavage is expected in the presence of an inflammatory response and as a result of wear processes at the articular interface. The aim of this study was to compare the tribological behavior of polyethylene articulated against an orthopedic wrought CoCrMo alloy for three lubricants: cleaved albumin, uncleaved albumin, and newborn calf serum (control). We hypothesized that the cleavage of albumin will increase the friction and wear rate of polyethylene, with a concomitant roughening of the polymer surface and the generation of larger wear debris particles. Cleavage of the bovine albumin into five fragments was performed by digestion with cyanogen bromide. In pin-on-flat (POF) wear tests of polyethylene pins made of Ticona GUR^® 1020/1050 against CoCrMo alloy discs, the cleaved albumin led to the lowest polyethylene wear and highest friction coefficients, whereas albumin led to the highest wear rates. In knee simulator tests, the albumin lubricant also led to a 2.7-fold increase in the tibial insert wear rate compared to the regular bovine serum lubricant (a wear rate for the cleaved albumin could not be obtained). The generated polyethylene wear particles were of increasing size and fibrillar shape in going from serum to albumin to cleaved albumin, although only the shape achieved statistical significance. Unlike bovine serum, cleaved albumin led to wear scars for both the POF and simulator wear tests that closely emulated the morphological features observed on explanted polyethylene tibial inserts from total knee replacements. We posit that the smaller protein fragments can more efficiently adsorb on the surfaces of both the polyethylene and the metal, thus offering protection against wear, while at the same time leading to an increase in friction, particle size, and particle elongation, as the protein fragment films interact adhesively during sliding. The results of this study have implications for pre-clinical wear testing methodology as they suggest that albumin concentration may be more pertinent than total protein concentration for wear testing polyethylene. Full article

Unidirectional sliding experiments with polished and laser textured steel surfaces were carried out to investigate the effects of different textured area densities, aspect ratios and dimple arrangements. The system was lubricated with Polyalphaolefin (PAO) at 100 °C and the contact pressure was 3 MPa. For measuring Stribeck curves, the sliding speed was controlled between 40 and 2000 mm/s. The textured area density was varied between 5% and 30%, with the lowest friction values found for 10%. Aspect ratios ranging from 0.02 to 0.2 were investigated and for 0.1 the lowest friction values were measured. The dimple arrangements tested were cubic, hexagonal and a random distribution for a textured area density of 10% and an aspect ratio of 0.1. Our results demonstrate that the dimple arrangement does affect friction values, hinting to the fact that individual texture elements do influence each other. The optimum dimple arrangement was found in a hexagonal packing. This systematic variation of these three key texturing parameters for the morphological texturing of a tribological surface with dimples will allow a strategic choice of texturing parameters. This makes the most of the tremendous potential that laser surface texturing has for reducing friction forces and thereby CO₂ emissions. Full article

Effective tribofilms are desirable to protect mechanical systems. In the research, the reduction in wear and friction were investigated through the use of organic additives. Graphene-based organic additives were prepared by surface modification of graphene using organic moiety that will provide tribochemical reaction with rubbing metal surface. The role of surface protective additives becomes vital when operating conditions become severe and moving components operate in a boundary lubrication regime. After protecting film is slowly removed by rubbing, it can regenerate through the tribochemical reaction of the additives at the contact. Many researchers demonstrated that organic additives physically or chemically adsorbed on rubbing metal surfaces to form monolayers, with their shear strength deriving primarily from the weak van der Waal interactions between opposing hydrocarbon chains at the interfaces. Experiments were conducted on a base oil where 0.01 wt % of the additive was used. Tribological evaluation was conducted using four-ball tester under room temperature and the morphology of the worn surfaces were characterized using Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM). Experimental results showed a 16% reduction in friction and 30% reduction in wear when compared to the base oil containing no additive. Full article

The rheological characteristics of one mineral oil and two ionic liquid (IL) based lubricating greases were explored as a function of thickener concentration. The ILs used are 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide ([BMIM][TFSI]) and trihexyltetradecylphosphonium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide ([P_6,6,6,14][TFSI]), with polytetra-fluoroethylene (PTFE) particles used as thickeners. Greases with different base liquid concentrations (60–80 wt %) were investigated using small-amplitude oscillatory shear and viscous flow measurements, and contact angle measurements probed adhesion at base liquid–PTFE interfaces. Rheological properties are influenced by base liquid–PTFE adhesion and the chemical structure of the grease base liquids. With the addition of thickener, the greases generally have higher elasticity, strain resistance, and frequency independent properties. Viscometric rheological tests illustrate non-Newtonian shear-thinning behaviour for all greases. [BMIM][TFSI] based greases show the most elastic properties and strain resistance, as well as the highest initial and lowest final viscosities of the greases tested. Full article

One of the possibilities to increase the efficiency of an internal combustion engine is to enhance its interaction with the charging system. With the help of new advanced simulation tools, the rotor dynamic behavior and bearing friction losses of turbochargers (TC) can be quantified in the early stage of the development process. This procedure enables virtual bearing development, leading to shortened development times and reduced testing costs. This paper presents a detailed view of the findings in current research; focusing on rotor dynamic simulations with emphasis on the non-linear dynamics (oil whirl; oil whip) and their impact on bearing friction losses. In order to obtain a detailed understanding of these effects; elastic multibody simulations (EMBS) with elastic hydrodynamic bearing (EHD) analysis including a mass-conservative approach are used. Measurement data is obtained using a unique test bench which is designed to quantify the bearing friction losses by means of a drag test. Additionally, hot gas test bench measurements are carried out to assess the non-linear rotor dynamics during steady state operation using shaft motion measurement equipment. In the first step; a multibody simulation model of a common automotive TC is set up; and a model of the friction test bench is mapped into it. The author will show that there is a high agreement between simulated and measured friction losses. In the second step; the TC model is detached from the virtual test bench and a variation of the essential parameters are carried out to identify the influence of the non-linear rotor dynamics on the bearing friction. A final model validation is obtained by comparing the measured shaft orbits for the TC hot gas test bench with the results from the multibody simulation. Full article

In this study, seven mixtures of diisopropanolamides that were synthesized from various vegetable oils (sunflower oil, soybean oil, cotton seed oil, olive oil, tobacco seed oil, coconut oil, used frying oil) were used as lubricating additives in a low-sulfur marine gas oil. All tribological measurements were carried out by using the high-frequency reciprocating ring (HFRR) test procedure, according to EN ISO 12156-1. The obtained wear results showed that all mixtures of diisopropanolamides used provide satisfactory a mean wear scar diameter (WS 1.4) of less than 520 μm, at concentration levels of 60–120 ppm. The concentrations below 60 ppm had no effect on the fuel lubricity. An increase in the concentration of the diisopropanolamide mixtures led to an insignificant increase of the lubrication effectiveness. Full article

Dynamic tribochemical processes for dicationic ionic liquid containing a geminal imidazolium cation head group bridged by a poly(ethylene glycol) and a bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide anion were studied using time-resolved mechanically stimulated gas emission mass-spectrometry (MSGE-MS). In comparison with similar monocationic imidazolium ionic liquids with short alkyl or long polyether side chains, the dicationic ionic liquid had a lower coefficient of friction on Ti6Al4V alloy and smoother behavior. The analysis of volatile decomposition products suggested multiple tribochemical reactions in which both anionic and cationic moieties are involved. The tribochemical degradation of cations was mainly through the detachment of the side and bridging chains from the imidazolium head groups. The absence of volatile products containing nitrogen implies that the imidazole group remained unchanged. Hydrogen and water desorption were attributed to the reactions of hydrogen fluoride being a product of anion degradation with titanium and titanium oxide, respectively. Full article

Rotors with high gyroscopic effects and low resonance frequencies caused by the blade wheel (blade frequencies) can lead to stabilization problems in the application field of turbomolecular pumps. If such a rotor is stabilized by active magnetic bearings, the control structure could be destabilized by the splitting up of the rigid body eigen-frequencies caused by the gyroscopic effect. The control structure of the magnetic bearings can also destabilize the eigen-modes caused by the blade wheel, if the gain of the control structure is too high in the range of the eigen-frequencies of the blade wheel. To deal with the problem of the gyroscopic effect, a decoupling and compensation method was developed based on the inverse dynamics of the rigid body rotor. The gain of the control structure in the range of the blade frequencies is decreased using a Kalman filter. To increase the damping of the system, the predicted states of the linear magnetic bearing model using a Kalman filter are applied instead of the sampled values of the sensors directly. For the decoupled structure, PID controllers are used for stabilization. The functionality of the control structure is verified by a measurement of the current and position signal using the Kalman states and the sensor values. The robustness and performance in the frequency range are verified using the sensitivity and compliance function. Full article

Introduction: Improvement of total knee arthroplasty (TKA) materials is one promising approach for extending the lifetime of endoprostheses. The target of this study was to evaluate the sufficiency of TKA-design-independent rolling–sliding screening tests. Additionally, this study attempted to assess the relevance of the design of TKA systems for wear performance by comparison with a simulator study. Materials and Methods: A TKA-design-independent rolling–sliding testing machine was employed at ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) 14243-near conditions and physiologic level unidirectional rolling–sliding. Contact surfaces were generalized into elementary forms at curvatures of real endoprostheses: CoCr-cylinders on flat UHMWPE (ultra-high-molecular-weight-polyethylene) cuboids. Materials varied in resin and crosslinking. One conventional UHMWPE and three highly crosslinked polyethylenes were charged with an axial load of 2.5 kN for 5 million cycles. Wear was determined gravimetrically and the ranking was compared to a simulator study. Results: No statistically significant differences between either material were found. This was inconsistent with the results of a simulator survey. Conclusions: The results of the study indicate that this type of screening test is not able to correctly rank UHMWPE for use in TKA systems. The use of a UHMWPE plate in the test setup with a rolling–sliding cylinder is capable of producing visible wear marks in the bearing area, but the setup followed by a gravimetric measurement does not show reliable results. As the tested materials did not significantly vary in wear performance, it can be concluded that for differences in TKA wear-production, the design of TKR-systems can matter. Full article

Self-lubricating bearings in hydropower applications are often lubricated with water under boundary lubricating conditions. Polyhydric alcohols replacing water have shown the potential to reduce both friction and wear. The objective of this work is, therefore, to evaluate the effect of a polyhydric alcohol-based environmentally-acceptable lubricant (EAL) on the friction and wear of self-lubricating materials for conformal contacts under boundary lubricating conditions. The lubricating properties of four commercially-available self-lubricating bearing materials were investigated under three different lubricating conditions: dry, water and a new polyhydric alcohol-based EAL. Bearing materials include one metallic composite and three polymer composites. A reciprocating motion test rig was used to evaluate the wear and friction properties. Surface analysis was performed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and optical profilometry. Results show that the wear rate for the polymer composites is increased when water is present compared to dry operating conditions. The new polyhydric alcohol-based EAL substantially improves both friction and anti-wear performance of all four self-lubricating bearing materials compared to both dry and water conditions. Surface analysis indicates that the material transfer to the counter-surface is limited when the polyhydric alcohol-based EAL is used. Full article

Date palm is one of the most cultivated palms mostly found in the Middle Eastern regions of the world. The date palm fruits are not only nutritionally rich, but also have a good amount of fatty acids such as oleic acid, palmitic acid, and linoleic acids, which have excellent anti-wear and lubricating properties, making it a potentially good candidate to be used as an environmentally-friendly lubricant. This study is a preliminary effort to explore the lubricating properties of date palm fruit syrup by conducting ball-on-disc wear tests on mild steel samples. Different concentrations (50, 75, and 100 vol %) of the syrup in water were tested at a normal load of 50 N and a sliding linear speed of 0.1 m/s. Scanning electron microscopy and optical profilometry were used to characterize the wear tracks and estimate the wear rates. 100 vol % date syrup with a viscosity of 16.95 mPa·s showed excellent results by reducing the coefficient of friction of steel-on-steel from 0.6 (dry conditions) to a value of ~0.1. The depth of the wear track reduced from ~152 µm (dry conditions) to ~11 µm, signifying a considerable reduction in wear. Full article

The tribological properties of α-zirconium phosphate particles as an additive in anhydrous calcium grease were studied by using an Optimol SRV-V oscillating reciprocating tester and a four-ball tester. Fortunately, α-Zr(HPO₄)·H₂O (α-ZrP) grease exhibits excellent properties in anti-friction and wear-resistant, load-carrying capacity, and extreme pressure properties. Scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) and 3D analysis show that α-ZrP particles appear to form a protective film allowing increased load capacity and operating frequency of the rubbed pairs. Meanwhile, α-ZrP particles can provide low friction coefficient and wear loss during a long-term test. Full article

The tribology of lubricated poly(ether ether ketone) (PEEK)—steel tribosystems was investigated in the static and boundary friction regime. Pentaerythrite ester and trimellitic acid ester were used as lubricants. The lubricants differed in their molecular structure but showed only minor differences in their rheological and cohesive energetic properties. In order to investigate the effect of the lubricants on static and dynamic friction, macroscopic oscillatory tribometry experiments and gliding experiments were carried out. The surface and interfacial energies of PEEK, lubricant, and steel, which can be used to determine e.g. the spreading tendency of the lubricant, were employed to explain the tribological characteristics of the system. The gliding experiments exhibited a velocity dependence of the coefficient of friction which indicates a “rate-and-state” type of friction. Trimellitic acid ester resulted in the lowest static and dynamic friction values due to its high tendency to spread. A different static friction behavior was found for pentaerythrite ester, which indicates a possible lubricant-induced mobilization of the polymer surface chains. This finding was supported by an increased interaction energy measured by contact angle measurements. The macroscopic oscillatory tribometry was shown to be a unique and precise method to investigate the transition from static to dynamic friction and to quantify macroscopic adhesive friction. Both types of experiments used a polished steel surface as a frictional partner, which favors the adhesive component of friction. However, the results for the lubricated contacts of polished steel surfaces in the boundary lubrication regime can give some insight into effects of the polymer transfer to rough steel surfaces in the mixed lubrication regime. Full article

Cemented carbides are outstanding engineering materials widely used in quite demanding material removal applications. In this study, laser surface texturing is implemented for enhancing, at the surface level, the intrinsic bulk-like tribological performance of these materials. In this regard, hexagonal pyramids patterned on the cutting surface of a tungsten cemented carbide grade (WC–CoNi) have been successfully introduced by means of laser surface texturing. It simulates the surface topography of conventional honing stones for abrasive application. The laser-produced structure has been tested under abrasive machining conditions with full lubrication. Wear of the structure has been characterized and compared, before and after the abrasive machining test, in terms of changes in geometry aspect and surface integrity. It is found that surface roughness of the machined workpiece was improved by the laser-produced structure. Wear characterization shows that laser treatment did not induce any significant damage to the cemented carbide. During the abrasive machining test, the structure exhibited a high wear resistance. Damage features were only discerned at the contacting surface, whereas geometrical shape of pyramids remained unchanged. Full article