The Evaluation of Wear Life Based on Accelerated Test through Analysis of Correlation between Wear Rate and Lubricant Film Parameter

Abstract

Among various reliability issues concerning mechanical components, wear is the least predictable, partly due to the lack of knowledge of the appropriate wear rate for the contact material in the mechanical system, which in turn greatly hinders our ability to predict the effective life span of these components. The wear rate of vane, which is part of a compressor, was evaluated using two types of wear tests, namely, a specimen wear test and a component wear test. A specimen wear test is a cylinder-on-disk type of test where the wear rate is obtained at various lubricant film parameter λ. A component wear test is designed to examine the wear on the driven parts of an actual compressor. To reduce the test duration, both types of wear tests were carried out under more severe lubrication conditions compared to field tests; specifically, the endurance test was conducted under commercial operating conditions. From the results of both the specimen and component wear tests, a linear correlation between wear rate and lubricant film parameter was shown. This article is focused on the estimation of vane wear rate in field tests based on the linear correlation from the specimen and component wear tests. Measurements of the wear rate during a 3,000-h field test were compared to the estimated wear rate. It was shown that estimation of the wear rate can be obtained through specimen and component wear tests, which provide factual data in a shorter period of time.