TRIBOLOGY

RELIABILITY

AGENDA
Introduction 5 minutes
Webinar 45 minutes
Q&A 10 minutes

Who Are We?

Ops A La Carte
HQ in Santa Clara, CA

Ops A La Carte
Founded in 2001
Named top 10 fastest growing, privately-held companies in

the Silicon Valley in 2006 and 2009 by the San Jose Business
Journal.
Over 1450 projects completed in 10 years
Over 500 Customers in over 30 countries
Over 100 different industries, 6 main verticals
CleanTech, MedTech, Telecom, Defense, Oil/Gas, Consumer
We run FREE monthly webinars.

 Ops Solutions Ops provides end-to-end solutions that target the corporate
product reliability objectives
Ops Individual A La Carte Consulting Ops identifies and solves the
missing key ingredients needed for a fully integrated reliable product
Ops Training Ops highly specialized leaders and experts in the industry
train others in both standard and customized training seminars
Ops Testing Ops state-of-the-art
provides comprehensive testing services

Ops Mechanical ReliabilityProjects

Touchscreens ALT to determine the life of the screen.

Pumps ALT to determine life of pumps.

Robotics ALT to determine the repeatability and robustness

Valves ALT to determine life of valves.

Gaskets ALT to determine degradation pattern.

Fans/Blowers ALT to determine life of fan.
Drills ALT to determine wear pattern of drilling equipment.

Upcoming Events we are at

International Reliability Innovations Symposium (IRIS)
March 16, 2012, San Jose, CA and webinar
Ops A La Carte helped organize the conference and we were on the paper review committee.

SMTA Solar Conference

March 21-23, 2012, Webinar
Ops A La Carte's Mike Silverman will be giving a presentation at this conference on "Reliability Risks in
the Solar Industry."

Upcoming Events we are at

IPC Conference on Test & Inspection
May 15-17, 2012, Costa Mesa, CA.
Ops A La Carte will be giving a presentation at this conference on "New Techniques for More Effective
ESS".

SMTA Conference on Soldering and Reliability

May 15-18, 2012, Toronto.
Ops A La Carte's Peter Arrowsmith will be giving a presentation at this conference on "Improving Product
Reliability Using Accelerated Stress Testing".

Upcoming Events we are at

MD&M East
May 22-24, 2012, Philadelphia, PA
Ops A La Carte's Mike Silverman will be giving a 3 hour class on "Medical Reliability Testing - Identifying
Testing Requirements Early."

Applied Reliability Symposium

June 13-15, 2012, New Orleans, LA
Ops A La Carte's Mike Silverman will be giving a presentation on "Calculating ROI When Implementing a
Design for Reliability Program".

Other Reliability Events

Certified Quality Engineer Preparation Class
Date(s): April 17 to May 29, 2012
Time: 6pm-10pm one night a week, 7 weeks
Location: San Jose, CA and Webinar
http://www.opsalacarte.com/Pages/education/edu_10cqe.htm

Annual Reliability Symposium

May 7-11, 2012 in Santa Clara, California and via webinar
TRACK ONE - DFX TOOLS
Design for Reliability (DfR): May 7-8
Design for 6 Sigma (DfSS): May 9
Design for Mechanical Reliability (DfMR): May 10
Design for Warranty (DfW): May 11 morning
Design for Software Reliability (DfS): May 11 afternoon

TRACK TWO - REL TOOLS: ALT/DOE/RCA

Design of Experiments (DOE): May 7-8
Best Accelerated Reliability Tests (BART): May 9-10
Root Cause Analysis (RCA): May 11

Upcoming Reliability Webinars

Design for Robustness
Date: April 4, 2012, 8:30am
Location: Webinar
This is our next webinar in our free webinar series
See link from our website www.opsalacarte.com

Webinar Stats
This is our 20th Webinar (see Ops site
for past webinar topics/content)

We run these webinars once a month

We partner with other companies
We partner with societies (IEEE, ASQ,
and others for broader reach)

Webinar Stats
Some of the past topics

Solar Reliability
Medical Reliability
Root Cause Analysis
Green Reliability
Soft Errors
Software Reliability
Prognostics
Best Reliability Testing
Lead Free and Reliability
Simulation and Reliability
Design of Experiments

Webinar Stats
Future Topics

FMEA/TS16949
Accelerated Reliability Tests, Different Options for
Return on Investment for Design for Reliability
Software Reliability

What would you like to see?

Let us know at info@opsalacarte.com

Registration Demographics
For this webinar we have signed up
100 Registrants
10 Countries

Registration Questions
1. Do you have portions of your product
that can wear due to mechanical
wear?

2. Do you know how to characterize the

life of all your wearout mechanisms?

Registration Questions
1. Do you have portions of your product that can
wear due to mechanical wear?

Yes

83%

No

17%

Registration Questions
2. Do you know how to characterize the life of all
your wearout mechanisms?

Yes

21%

No

79%

Agenda
Introduction to Tribology
Stribeck Curve-Rolling element bearing
Hertzian Contact Mechanics
Wear and Wear Mechanisms

Tribology
Tribology is the science and engineering of interacting
surfaces in relative motion.

Includes the study and application of the principles of

friction, lubrication and wear.

Annual cost of friction and wear-related energy and material

losses is over $700 billion -- 5% to 7% of the United States
$14 trillion gross national product (DOE, 2010)

Every aspect of tribology impacts product reliability

Tribology is a branch of mechanical engineering, but

Tribology Gets Complicated

Key Aspects of Tribology

Friction and Wear, Fluid Film Lubrication,
Elastohydrodynamic Lubrication,

Surface Properties and Characterization,

Contact Mechanics, Magnetic Recordings,

Tribological Systems, Seals, Bearing Design

and Technology, Gears, Metalworking,
MEMs, Lubricants, and Artificial Joints

Friction Regimes
Friction regimes for sliding lubricated surfaces have been
broadly categorized based on film thickness (h) versus the
average distance between asperity contacts (R) :

Solid/boundary friction Boundary Lubrication, h=0

Fluid friction Elastohydrodynamic and Mixed, h~R
Mixed friction Hydrodynamic Lubrication, h>R
Stribeck curve-Basic curve clearly show the minimum
value of friction as the demarcation between full fluid-film
lubrication and some solid asperity interactions.

Stribeck et al
Stribeck and others systematically studied the variation of
friction between two liquid lubricated surfaces (5 Dec 1905)

Journal Bearings used in the research easy to recreate results

Curve is friction against function of a dimensionless
lubrication parameter N/P, where is the dynamic viscosity,
N the speed (e.g. revolutions per minute of a bearing) and P
the load projected on to the geometrical surface. [STLE]

Leads to understanding of wear behavior based on regime

Stribeck Curve

f versus N/P, the latter called Sommerfeld no.

Reliability of Surfaces in Contact

Reliability of mechanical elements is a tribological
phenomenon based on wear characteristics

Each regime leads to different failure modes and Weibull

curve can be used to model elastohydrodynamic and
hydrodynamic lubrication

Application to mechanical elements is advanced since

industry is established well ahead of electrical and electronic
industries e.g. mechanical roller bearings

Rolling Element Reliability

Seemingly identical rolling bearings operated under identical
conditions may not last the same amount of time

Impractical to test a statistically significant number of

bearings, so engineers rely on standardized bearing-life
calculations to select and size bearings for a particular
application.

Calculations continue to evolve and become more accurate

over time, reflecting the collective experience of the bearing
industry, including recent advances in manufacturing,
tribology, materials, end-user condition monitoring, and
computation.

Bearing Life Equations

RATING LIFE EQUATIONSThe equation from ISO 281,
2007 or the American Bearing Manufacturers Association
(ABMA) Standards 9 and 11 figures basic, non adjusted
rating life by:
L10 = (C / P)p in millions of revolutionswhere C = basic
dynamic load rating, lb;
P = equivalent dynamic bearing load, lb;
p = life-equation exponent ( p = 3 for ball
bearings; and p = 10/3 for roller bearings)

Tribology of A Roller Bearing

Bearing Life Definitions

Basic life or L10 as defined in ISO and ABMA standards is

the life that 90% of a sufficiently large group of apparently

identical bearings can be expected to reach or exceed.

Median or average life, sometimes called Mean Time

Between Failure (MTBF), is about five times the calculated
basic rating life.

Service life is the life of a bearing under actual operating

conditions before it fails or needs to be replaced for whatever
reason.

Specification life is generally a requisite L10 basic rating life

based on experience in similar applications by manufacturer.

Roller Bearing Example

Roller bearing is to be selected to withstand a radial load of
4kN and have an L10 life of 1200h at a speed of 600 rpm.
The rated life is 3000 hours and nominal speed of 500 rpm.

CR=F*[(LD/LR)(ND/NR]1/a
where

CR is rated load
LD/LR ratio of actual life to rated life
ND/NR ratio of actual speed to rated speed
F is the load
a is the bearing exponent (3 ball and 10/3 roller bearings )

Sample Solution
CR=F*[(LD/LR)(ND/NR]1/a
CR=4[(1200/3000)(600/500)3/10
CR=3.21kN

Engineer looks through bearing journals with rated load for

the roller bearing with the right dimensions for application

In reality, bearing manufacturers do all this for you and have

complete databases of rated life for applicable loads for
bearings specific to the application

Tribology Poll Question 1

Does your company use mechanical or
electromechanical components in their
products?
a) all the time
b) some times
c) rarely
d) never

(Hertzian) Contact Mechanics

Study of deformation of solids in contact where deformation
can be elastic, viscoelastic and plastic.

Hertz formulated the concept of local elastic deformation of

two bodies in contact such as a sphere on a plain (1886)

Adhesion at the contact first considered by JKR theory

(Johnson, Kendall, Roberts 1970) more than elastic forces

Bradley provided the model for Van der Waals forces

between two spherical bodies in contact

A more involved theory (the DMT theory) also considers Van

der Waals interactions outside the elastic contact regime

Hertzian Contacts
All contacts assume elastic deformation
based on the geometry and
configuration of the contact.
Contact areas define the surface and
subsurface stress state:
1. Point Contact Cone on plane
2. Circular Contact - sphere on a
plane, sphere on sphere
3. Line Contact cylinder on a
plane
4. Elliptical Contact sphere on
a cylinder, cylinder on
cylinder

Real Surfaces In Contact

Every surface is rough at a microscopic level asperities are
visible, sometimes referred to as micro asperities or micro
roughness

Micro Asperities Under Load

Asperities deform under load
and behave elastically as
defined by material limits

Flattening occurs as shown right

Tribology Poll Question 2

Does your company experience unanticipated
wear failures of mechanical or electromechanical components?
a) all the time
b) some times
c) rarely
d) never

Wear And Wear Mechanisms

Most Important Mechanism in Tribology Least
Understood

Wear - General Classification

Wear is classified by mechanism: adhesive (mild and severe),
abrasive, fatigue, corrosive and delamination wear

Major problem with wear is that the mechanism of wear

alters as the process goes on transition presents difficulties

Clear picture of wear, but the theory for the particular types
is lacking-theory is wear and application specific

Main weapon against wear is to design using hard materials,

choosing suitable lubricants, and having a perfect and
maintainable filtration system.

Adhesive Wear
Most prominent type of wear occurs when asperities touch
and weld together resulting in subsurface tearing

Most common with inadequate lubricating film (h<R); metal

oxide film on the surface is worn away allowing micro weld

Adhesion of junction is stronger than cohesion of base metal

Abrasive Wear
Relatively harder material cuts into a softer counter surface
Micro-cutting can be a useful tool in industrial processes
such as grinding, diamond or carborrundum powder
polishing, and as most households know, sanding

Fatigue Wear
When there is cyclic surface contact, opposing asperities
elastically deform and recover, but ultimately fatigue off

In fatigue wear, the harder the material, the greater its

resistance to asperity failure higher modulus effective

Micro cracking
Surface phenomenon
Normal stress, E

Subsurface phenomenon
Shear stress, G

Fatigue Wear
Illustration of the facets of
fatigue, including crack
propagation, spheric particles
and larger fatigue spall
particles.

SEM Photograph showing

asperity wear including
spheric and larger fatigue
spall particles

Fatigue Wear

Corrosive Wear
Oxygen, moisture or other active chemicals in the lubricating
film form a layer which prevents surfaces adhering together

This formative layer is rubbed off during the contact and has
to be reformed before the next contact comes round i.e. this
amount of material is worn away

The art of choosing the right additive is to find one just

active enough to replace the worn layer e.g. e.p. additives

Extreme pressure (e.p.) additives protect by creating a

surface boundary layer increase load carrying capability

Corrosive Wear
Theory

Actual

Delamination Wear
Most common in rolling element bearings where stresses are
cyclical resulting in larger metallic flakes delamination

Originally proposed that dislocations pile up at or near the

surface due to stress cycles and Hertzian stresses

Postulated that the thickness of the flakes was related to the

depth below the surface of Hertzian shear stresses

Tribology Poll Question 3

What follow-up Tribology topics do you have
interest in?
a. Wear and Wear Mechanism Modeling
b. Elastohydrodynamic Lubrication
c. Wear and Reliability Modeling
d. Wear and Accelerated Life Testing
e. Other
f. None

Q&A

Contact Information
Ops A La Carte, LLC
Mike Silverman
Managing Partner
(408) 472-3889
mikes@opsalacarte.com
www.opsalacarte.com

Special offer for webinar

participants:
Free 1 hour Reliability Consultation

Offer expires on 3/31/12

Our Next FREE Webinar will

be on April 4th on
Design for Robustness

POLLING QUESTION 4
Are there any aspects of Design for
Robustness you are most interested in ?
a. How Design for Robustness relates to
b.
c.
d.
e.

Design for Reliability

Unique differences between Design for
Robustness and Design for Reliability
Both
Other
Im not interested in Design for
Robustness and probably will not attend

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If you fill out survey, you will
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Contact Information
Ops A La Carte, LLC
Mike Silverman
Managing Partner
(408) 472-3889
mikes@opsalacarte.com
www.opsalacarte.com