An Energy Approach for Helping the Selection of Solid Lubrication Coatings Under Fretting Conditions

Abstract

Employing friction reduction coatings is one of the most effective methods to palliate the fretting damage. However, facing numerous available coatings, how to compare them and select the optimum one for a specific application is still a challenging task. In this paper, based on the investigation of the fretting behaviors of several bonded solid lubricant coatings, an energy approach in terms of “initial maximal dissipated energy density” was suggested to compare the tribological response of coatings. According to test results, the lifetime of each coating under different test parameters can be fitted by one master curve. The definition of this master curve for a given coating may be used for the prediction of the coating lifetime only by knowing the initial energy dissipated in the contact. The comparison of different master curves for different coatings can be employed to help the coating selection.