Friction and wear of Cu-15 wt%Ni-8 wt%Sn bronze lubricated by grease at room and elevated temperature

Abstract

Cu-15 wt%Ni-8 wt%Sn (CuNiSn) bronze alloy shows promising bearing performance when used in tribological applications and has attracted increasing research interest. In this work, the tribological performance of CuNiSn in terms of friction and wear were investigated in a ball-on-disc contact configuration, sliding against a Al 2 O 3 ball under varying normal loads (1 and 4 N) and environmental temperatures (room temperature (~18°C) and 110 °C). Post-test characterization techniques, including optical profilometry, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were adopted to characterize the wear track on the CuNiSn surface after 13500 cycles of reciprocating sliding. Both friction and wear behaviour was found to depend on the load and temperature whilst wear resistance reduced with increased temperature. A mechanically mixed layer (MML) and plastic deformation layer (PDL) were characterized by TEM micrographs of the cross-section from the wear track. Under 4 N load, a 1-1.5 μm thick tribolayer was developed during sliding at room temperature compared with a 200-300 nm tribolayer at 110 °C. The friction and wear mechanisms were largely dominated by properties of the tribolayers which were initially associated with and affected by load and temperature.

Tribological Properties and Lubrication Mechanism of Nickel Nanoparticles as an Additive in Lithium Grease

“…Wang et al [19] reported that a double-layer Ni-P-Cr composite coating was beneficial in improving the mechanical and anticorrosion properties. Zhu et al [20] proved the excellent lubricating performance of Cu-15 wt%Ni-8 wt%Sn bronze alloy as an additive in the bearing field. The research to date has tended to focus on modified nanometer Ni rather than pure nanometer Ni.…”

Electrical wear performance of copper matrix composites reinforced with hybrid CNTs and TiB2 particles

“…The flatness of composites surface can be improved. While in (4CNTs–1TiB 2 )/Cu composite, the accumulation of plastic deformation makes the surface embrittle and forms a large spalling layer (Zhu et al , 2020). The TiB 2 particles in the spalling layer play a negative role and become a crack source, and it accelerates the spalling layer to become wear debris in the subsequent wear process.…”

Effect of Plating Current Density on the Ball-On-Disc Wear of Sn-Plated Ni Coatings on Cu Foils

“…The symbols r, R and w ae ball radius, tack radius and tack depth, respectively. Considering the wear volume, the wear factor (K) was determined by the equation [28][29][30]…”