Model of organization of the epitropic liquid phase

Extrusion and rarefaction of lubricant in boundary layer is the key processes of adhesive wear of highly loaded tribocontacts

“…Fig. 3 shows a diagram of the appearance of contact between surfaces and monomolecular layers during compression in accordance with the concept of the epitropic liquid crystal structure of boundary layers of oils on lyophilic friction surfaces [51]. Such a representation is consistent with the theories of Langmuir and BET, namely: all multimolecular liquid crystal layers located above the monomolecular layer behave like fluid fragments of a liquid in a volume.…”

“…The strength of such layers in compression is very high, their modulus of elasticity exceeds the modulus of elasticity of structural materials of friction surfaces and even diamond, which is noted in the works of V. Hardy [50] and A.S. Akhmatov [10]. A schematic representation of the process of static compression of surfaces with such multimolecular layers of an Epitropic-Liquid Crystal structure [51] is shown in Fig. 3.…”

The structure of overlapped epitropic LC

“…The effect of a solid substrate action on near-surface nonmesogenic liquid layers, which induces there an orientationally ordered supramolecular structure such as the epitropic LC phase [1], has been known for quite a long period of time [1,2], but its study still allows us to obtain a new information about the nature of interaction of liquids and solid bodies in the region of their interphase boundary. The studying of ELC properties is continued to this day both by experimental [5 -10] and theoretical [3,4,11,12] methods. The investigation of ELC phase in n-alkanes is important both for modifying the quantitative physical theory of this phenomenon [11 -14] and in a practical sense [15], since it allows us to solve practical problems related to the control of boundary friction in mechanisms and machine parts.…”

“…In the absence of a shear flow of liquid, the ELC layers near each of the substrates have an equilibrium thickness 0s d , and the thickness isotropic "bulk" liquid of the interlayer (viscosity vol η ) is equal to 0 2 s D d − . On the other side, in accordance with the statistical model [11,14], the ELC layer is treated as a homogeneous mixture of "pile" (with a fraction q) of "thread-like" molecular associates of medium length 0s d (consisting mainly of liquid dimers) between which there is an unassociated "isotropic" liquid (with a fraction 1 -q). Adjoined to the adsorption centers of the substrate surface, such a quasi-polymer "pile" exists above the melting point m T in the overheated temperature range…”