Energy and wear analysis in lubricated sliding contact

Abstract

Lubricants are used to control friction and minimize wear in a variety of tribological applications. When lubricants are used at the contact interface of two sliding surfaces the material loss due to wear and the energy consumption due to friction are reduced by several orders of magnitude. In railroad applications, lubricants are routinely applied to the side of the rails to reduce friction and wear that occur between the flange part of the wheel and the gauge side of the rail on curved tracks. A standardized method has been developed to measure the railroad gauge side lubricant performance (A. Alp, Energy and wear analysis in lubricated sliding and rolling/sliding contacts, M.S. Thesis, Illinois Institute of Technology, August 1991). This method correlates the amount of energy saved up to lubricant breakdown and stabilization points and lubricant breakdown duration to lubricant performance.