Electrostructured Lubricants for Friction Devices

Abstract

In this work it is proposed to use special lubricant materials with the properties manageable by electric field. Such lubricant materials allow to provide the viscosity needed for liquid friction adaptive to the conditions of the loading interaction of the contacting interfaces of bearings and sliding supports. The coefficients of friction were evaluated by means of modified friction machine with planar parallel scheme of the sample interaction realization. At that the sliding speed of the sample relative to the counter body increased smoothly according to the sinusoidal law from zero up to maximum value. Then it decreased smoothly to the full stop and the movement reversed; contact pressures after working out the given number of cycles increased stepwise from 0.5 to 3.2 MPa. The range of the optimal intensities lain in between 120–150V. An increase in the relative resource of efficiency of the frictional device up to 3 times was found in these conditions.