Study of the effects of relative humidity and velocity on the friction characteristics of pneumatic cylinders

Abstract

The movement of a piston rod in a pneumatic cylinder is directly affected by the air humidity in the atmosphere, especially in the case of piston rods without any means of protection or grease on their surfaces. In a pneumatic cylinder system, the friction between the piston rod and the rod seal is sliding friction, and it has a significant value that varies with the variation in the moisture on the piston rod’s surface. In this paper, an investigation of the friction characteristics of piston rods and rod seals in a pneumatic cylinder was carried out with different humidity and velocity values to understand the effect of lubricants on the moving parts of pneumatic systems in humid environments, where the friction characteristics of the displacements corresponding to the static and dynamic friction forces were displayed on a measuring device. The research results showed that the static friction forces tended to decrease by [Formula: see text] and that the dynamic friction forces tended to decrease by [Formula: see text] when the relative humidity increased from 51% to 99% at different velocities between 5 and 100 mm/s.