Abstract
Increasing efforts to reduce frictional losses and the associated use of low-viscosity lubricants lead to machine elements being operated under mixed lubrication. Consequently, wear effects are also gaining relevance. Appropriate numerical modeling and predicting wear in a reliable manner offers new possibilities for identifying harmful operating conditions or for designing running-in procedures. However, most previous investigations focused on simplified model contacts and the wear behavior of application-oriented contacts is relatively underexplored. Therefore, the contribution of this paper was to provide a numerical procedure for studying the wear evolution in the mixed elastohydrodynamically lubricated (EHL) roller/raceway contact by coupling a finite element method (FEM)-based 3D EHL model with surface topography changes following a local Archard-type wear model, a Greenwood–Williamson-based load-sharing approach and the Sugimura surface adaption model. This study applied the operating conditions of an 81212 thrust roller bearing, considering realistic geometry and locally varying velocities. The calculated wear profiles in the raceway featured asymmetries, which were in good agreement with the experimental results reported in the literature and could be correlated with the velocity and slip distribution. In addition, the effects of speed, load and oil viscosity were investigated by means of four load cases and two lubricants, demonstrating the broad range of applying the numerical approach.
Highlights
According to Holmberg and Erdemir [1], tribological contacts account for about 23% of the world’s total energy consumption, whereas overcoming friction contributes to about 20% and remanufacturing worn parts and spare equipment due to wear and wear-related failures amount to 3%
This paper aims at providing a numerical procedure to predict the wear evolution in the mixed elastohydrodynamically lubricated (EHL) roller/raceway contact of a thrust roller bearing
The lubrication conditions of all four load cases and both oil types in terms of fluid film gap and total and solid contact pressure are depicted in Figures 5 and 6 and Figures 10–13
Summary
According to Holmberg and Erdemir [1], tribological contacts account for about 23% of the world’s total energy consumption, whereas overcoming friction contributes to about 20% and remanufacturing worn parts and spare equipment due to wear and wear-related failures amount to 3%. Material and lubrication technologies for friction reduction and wear protection in vehicles, machines and other equipment, energy losses could be reduced by up to 40% [1]. Wear can be considered critical as it can lead to catastrophic failures and breakdowns, having a negative impact on productivity and costs. Appropriate numerical modeling over different scales and predicting wear in a reliable manner offers new possibilities for understanding and redesigning tribological systems in machine elements or engine components. The comprehension and simulation of wear in tribo-contacts were the subject of several studies ranging from boundary to hydro-(HL) or elastohydrodynamically lubricated (EHL) contacts
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