Copyright 2010 American Foundry Society, www.afsinc.org. Reprinted with permission.

DEVELOPMENT OF A LEAD-FREE BEARING MATERIAL

FOR AEROSPACE APPLICATIONS

J. Thomson, R. Zavadil and M. Sahoo

CANMET-Materials Technology Laboratory, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
A. Dadouche, W. Dmochowski and M. Conlon
Gas Turbine Laboratory/Institute of Aerospace Research/National Research Council, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Copyright © 2010 American Foundry Society

Abstract

Apart from providing excellent anti-friction and anti-wear
properties of bearing alloys, lead is considered an environ-
mentally hazardous material. Lead content in bearing bronze
varies depending on the application and, in some cases, is
fairly low. However, disposal of waste material from fabri-
cation processes, disposal of used bearings, and contami-
nation of lubricants can cause serious environmental and
health concerns. In some countries, regulations prohibit the
use of lead in plumbing applications, bearing materials, and
electronic equipment.
The main objective of this project is to develop a lead-free
environmentally friendly copper-based bearing material for
high speed/load applications. In this study, bismuth was se-
lected to replace lead in alloy C93700, and two different
lead-free materials were cast in addition to the standard
bearing material. This comparative study is focused on me-
chanical properties, microstructure, and tribological char-
acterization of the candidate replacements for the lead-con-
taining bearing alloys.
Keywords: lead-free copper, bearing alloy, tribological
properties, microstructure, mechanical properties, fric-
tion force

Introduction
Recently, environmental issues related to the use of hazardous
materials have become important considerations in the design
and life-cycle management of aerospace systems. In bearing
technology, these issues stem mainly from the presence of
lead in bearing alloys which is used to achieve good frictional
characteristics. Lead is a basic component of most commonly
used bearing materials such as white metals, bronzes, and
copper-lead, as well as in the materials for overlays in bimetal
bearings. The environmental issues concerning lead content
in bearings are related to the fabrication of parts with alloys
containing lead. During fabrication, waste material from ma-
chining processes and the used lubricants are contaminated
with lead and need to be disposed of properly. Also, the dis-
posal of used bearings that contain lead and other toxic metals
such as nickel and cadmium are a concern.
between the layer of the new bearing material and its steel
backing.
Bronze is one of the most popular materials for bearings. All
bronzes can be used as bearing materials, but their bearing
properties improve when lead is added. Compared with Bab-
bitts, some bronzes have superior load-carrying capacity.
Lead in bronzes contributes to good frictional characteristics
but also to relatively low strength. High-tin alloys with little or
no lead have high hardness but poor frictional characteristics.
The composition of a no-lead bearing bronze alloy available
on the market has 89% copper, 6% tin, 1% zinc and 4% bis-
muth (alloy C89320); however none of the major manufac-
turers of aerospace bearings offers lead-free bronze bearings.
Bronze bushings are produced by machining cast materials
and are therefore very economical and reliable. Bronze bear-
ings are also widely used in automotive and electrical motors.

Babbitts or white metal can be lead or tin based. Lead-based
Babbitts may contain up to 80% lead. Tin-based Babbitts
contain approximately 0.5% lead. Other additives in Bab-
bitts are copper (as much as 6%) and antimony (as much
as 8%). These alloys are used for light to medium loads in
turbines, compressors and gears. Bearing manufacturers in
North America are reluctant to switch to white metals be-
cause of the relatively low lead contents in tin-based white
metals and the small market for environmentally friendly
bearing alloys. There is also concern about bond strength
A mixture of copper and lead is used for higher loads than
those carried by Babbitts. The bearings are made from a strip
that consists of a steel backing, a layer of cast or sintered
copper-lead powder, and a thin overlay of lead. Such bear-
ings have high strength while the overlay provides conform-
ability and embedability.
The C89320 alloy is a lead-free bearing material in which
bismuth was substituted for lead. Its performance is very
similar to that of the leaded material C93200.1 Sahu2 per-

International Journal of Metalcasting/Winter 10 19

 Copyright 2010 American Foundry Society, www.afsinc.org. Reprinted with permission.

formed a very interesting study where he analyzed and com-
pared the frictional properties of bismuthized bronzes (with
various bismuth and tin contents) to standard leaded bronzes
(C93200, C93600) as well as to a commercially available
lead-free bearing material (C89320). Continuous casting
was used to produce the test coupons. The results presented
showed that the bismuthized bronzes have similar mechani-
cal properties and wear rates to those with lead. It has been
also concluded that leaded bearings/bushings could be re-
placed by bismuthized bearings/bushings without any loss
of performance. However, the author did not carry out any
bearing rig test for performance evaluation.

Figure 1. Web bar casting design.

Figure 2. Schematic of machined tensile specimen.

Figure 3. Schematic of the machined fatigue specimen.

20 International Journal of Metalcasting/Winter 10

 Copyright 2010 American Foundry Society, www.afsinc.org. Reprinted with permission.
This project was initiated by the Gas Turbine Laboratory
(GTL) of the Institute of Aerospace Research (IAR) of the
National Research Council (NRC), Ottawa, Ontario and
led to this collaborative project with CANMET Materials
Technology Laboratory [CANMET-MTL (company A)].
The goal of this study was to develop a lead-free replace-
ment bearing material to address environmental concerns
and market demands resulting from expected future regu-
lations that will prohibit the use of lead. It was decided to
focus on alloy C93700 containing 9-11% Sn and 8-11% Pb
which is usually used for bearings for high speed and heavy
pressure. This alloy has typical mechanical properties of 241
MPa UTS, 124 MPa YS, 20% elongation and a compressive
strength of 325 MPa. The project team decided to replace
lead with bismuth in the following combinations:
• Cu – 5% Bi – 10% Sn,
• Cu – 10% Bi – 10% Sn, and
• Cu – 10% Pb – 10% Sn
(alloy C93700 base alloy for comparison).
Table 1. Chemical Composition of the Alloys Tested
Figure 4. General view of the Falex tester.
International Journal of Metalcasting/Winter 10
Experimental Procedure and
Specimen Preparation
All alloys were prepared in a clay-graphite crucible using
a 100 kW, 3000 Hz push-up type induction furnace. Since
there was no information in the literature on how these al-
loys should be prepared, the procedure for preparing leaded
alloys was followed. Pure electrolytic tough pitch (ETP)
copper was melted under a graphite cover to minimize hy-
drogen pick-up at 1100ºC, once the copper was liquid, bis-
muth and tin were added. The temperature of the molten
metal was raised to 1150ºC, then phosphorus was added (in
the form of Cu-15% P) to de-oxidise the melt. The crucible
was then lifted from the furnace, and the molds were poured.
For each composition, two melts were required due to the
large amount of material needed. In each melt, five web bar
sand molds were poured. Each mold yields two tensile speci-
mens for a total of 10 per melt, thus 20 tensile bars were
tested per composition. The full web casting is shown in Fig.
Figure 5. Close-up view of the test enclosure.
21
 Copyright 2010 American Foundry Society, www.afsinc.org. Reprinted with permission.
1. Also from each melt, one plate, measuring 1.5 x 6 x 12 in.
were cast. From this plate, 6 blocks were cut from which 6
fatigue specimens were machined, thus 12 fatigue specimens
were tested from each composition. Samples taken from the
gating system of the web casting were used for friction test-
ing. A number of specimens were prepared from each com-
position for these tests. Figures 2 and 3 show the machined
dimensions of the tensile test bars and fatigue specimens,
respectively. The samples for friction testing were machined
to 18 x 12 x 8 mm.
Tribological Properties
A Falex block-on-ring friction and wear testing machine
(Figs. 4 and 5) was used to carry out the tribological tests in
accordance with the ASTM standard procedures D2714. At
first, a couple of dry tests at different loads and speeds were
performed on the Alloy 3, however a loud noise was gener-
ated after a couple of hundreds of test cycles. Most of those
tests had to be stopped well before achieving the number of
cycles required by the standard (5,400 cycles) due to a sud-
den increase in the coupon temperature (>150°C) and a very
unpleasant high-pitched noise.
Lubricated wear tests were then performed on the three ma-
terials, and only those will be discussed in this paper. The
tests were run at room temperature using VG10 grade oil
which has a room temperature viscosity close to that of typi-
cal turbine oil (VG32 grade) at a temperature of 50°C. The
contact load between the coupon and the ring was set to 100
lb with a ring speed of 780 rpm resulting in total test dura-
tion of 7 min. The load was applied to the block right after
the desired speed was reached. Three tests were conducted
for each material.
Fatigue Limit
The ISO Standard 7905-2 was followed to conduct the fatigue
tests. The test method requires loading the specimen up to
50 million stress cycles with a frequency ranging from 50 Hz
to 80 Hz. All the tests were performed at the Royal Military
College, Kingston, Ontario.
Table 2. Average Mechanical Properties from Alloys Tested
22
Results and Discussion
Composition
The chemical composition from each experiment is given in
Table 1. The target composition was met with considerable ac-
curacy. There were slight differences between the bismuth and
tin contents in the two melts that made up one alloy composi-
tion, but these differences were minor and should have no effect
on test results. Of the twenty tensile bars for each composition,
four were tested at room temperature and four at each of the
elevated test temperatures, (100, 150, 200 and 250ºC).
Mechanical Properties
The average mechanical properties are shown in Table 2 and
plotted in Figs. 6 and 7. Figure 6 shows the data separated by
composition, and Fig. 7 shows the data separated by specific
property. The data show that the bismuth-containing alloys
have promising mechanical properties compared with the lead-
ed alloy. Alloy 1, containing 5% bismuth, had better properties
than Alloy 2 which contains 10% bismuth. Alloys 1 and 3 had
comparable yield strength and elongation at all test tempera-
tures; as the test temperature reached its maximum, Alloy 3 had
the best mechanical properties followed by Alloy 1. The prop-
erties of Alloy 2 fell below the typical properties of the leaded
alloy C93700. With the exception of yield strength, Alloys 1
and 3 had good properties up to 150ºC, as observed previously
for other leaded and Bi-containing alloys.3 At higher test tem-
peratures, the properties of all the alloys fell below the typical
room-temperature properties of typical C93700 alloy.
Vickers microhardness testing was completed using a 10
g force with 15 s dwell time; the results are shown in Ta-
ble 3. Bismuth is harder than lead – bismuth averages 30
HV while lead measures 10 HV. The alpha-delta eutectoid
rich in copper and tin has a very high hardness ranging
between 200 and 400 HV. The matrix hardness of Alloy
1 is higher than that of Alloy 2 due to its copper content.
The matrix softens a considerable amount in Alloy 3 after
testing at 250ºC, while the hardness of the matrix in Al-
loy 1 is stable after the high temperature test. Since there
International Journal of Metalcasting/Winter 10
 Copyright 2010 American Foundry Society, www.afsinc.org. Reprinted with permission.

is considerable coring, the dendrites will have a range of ing the indentations from the hardness testing. The differ-
hardness that will lead to some scatter in the microhard- ences in hardness of the various phases are evident from
ness measurements. Figure 8 presents micrographs show- the size of the diamond indentations.

(a) Alloy 1 (a) Yield strength

(b) Alloy 2 (b) Ultimate tensile strength

(c) Alloy 3 (c) Elongation

Figure 6. Plots of mechanical properties as a function of Figure 7. Comparison of mechanical properties of the
test temperature. three alloys.

International Journal of Metalcasting/Winter 10 23

 Copyright 2010 American Foundry Society, www.afsinc.org. Reprinted with permission.

Fatigue Limit promising if we consider its good mechanical and tribologi-

Figure 9 shows the S-N curves of each of the materials. Alloy
3 has the highest limit of 70 MPa, followed by Alloy 1 with
50 MPa, and finally Alloy 2 with 30 MPa. The Alloy 2 data
are rather discouraging due its low fatigue limit. The fatigue
limit the Alloy 1 is 28% less than that of Alloy 3. This is
cal properties. The arrows in the plots indicate that the tests
of the specimen could run for more than 50 million cycles.
It is important to mention that, during the fatigue tests, a couple
of pores were noticed in Alloys 2 and 3. Some of them were
located at the gauge section and were visible to the naked eye.

Table 3. Vickers Microhardness Test Results from Alloys Produced

(a)

(b) (c)
Figure 8. Micrographs of Alloy 1 showing microhardness indentations, as-polished.

24 International Journal of Metalcasting/Winter 10

 Copyright 2010 American Foundry Society, www.afsinc.org. Reprinted with permission.
Microstructure
Lead and bismuth are practically insoluble in solid copper, and
they solidify last as almost pure metals at the grain boundaries.
Lead is distributed as globules which is the desired morphol-
ogy. Bismuth is also present as globules, but it can also form a
film along the grain boundaries. If this film is continuous, it can
have a detrimental effect on material properties. This can lead
to severe alloy embrittlement. Plewes et al.4 performed tests on
possible third-element additives to Cu-1% Bi alloys to combat
this phenomenon. They found that one of the best additives to
combat the effect of bismuth was tin. Since tin is added to these
alloys to provide solid solution strengthening, it should also
help to achieve a more uniform distribution of bismuth.
Samples for microscopic examination and microhardness
testing were cut from the threaded grip section of the tested
tensile bars. Micrographs taken of as-polished samples cut
from Alloys 1, 2 and 3 are shown in Figs. 10, 11 and 12,
respectively, after testing at room temperature. These mi-
crographs show that the bismuth – containing alloys have
particles of pure bismuth (gray particles) and particles of an
intermetallic copper-tin phase (light blue particles). The as-
polished micrographs taken of the leaded alloy show a similar
structure, except the particles are lead, not bismuth. The mor-
phology of the lead particles seems to be more globular than
the bismuth particles. A ferric chloride (FeCl3) etching solu-
tion was used on the samples, and micrographs from some
selected samples are presented in Fig. 13. All the micrographs
show a structure typical for cast tin bronze. Due to the nature
of copper-tin alloys, considerable segregation occurs during
freezing. This causes high composition gradients within the
grains, their central portions being rich in copper, surrounded
by zones increasingly rich in tin. This phenomenon, known
as coring, commonly occurs in the as-cast structure. The last
liquid to solidify is enriched with tin upon cooling and forms
alpha and delta phases. The alpha and delta phases fill in the
areas between the dendrite arms; this results in the eventual
Figure 9. Fatigue limit of Alloys 1, 2 and 3.
International Journal of Metalcasting/Winter 10
formation of a hard, brittle phase, occurring as bluish lakes
of alpha-delta eutectoid at the alloy grain boundaries. Since
these alloys have a long freezing range (160ºC) and are cast in
sand, some samples have massive grains – as large as 8 mm –
while some grain sizes are in the 100-200 µm range.
Alloy 2 (Fig. 11) has much more shrinkage porosity than
Alloy 1 (Fig. 10). The shrinkage porosity shown in Fig.
11 is quite significant and would affect the ultimate tensile
strength, elongation and fatigue strength, but not the yield
strength. Referring back to Fig. 7(a), the differences in yield
strength between Alloys 1, 2 and 3 are not as dramatic as
those of the ultimate tensile strength and elongation. The
micrographs presented in Figs. 10 and 11 show that bismuth
has an elongated smooth morphology. The micrographs in
Fig. 13 show considerable bismuth along the grain boundar-
ies. Despite bismuth segregation, in some cases, the proper-
ties are still encouraging. The high tin content must serve to
partially combat the adverse effect of the bismuth. Alloy 3
has much less shrinkage porosity than Alloys 1 and 2. It is
possible that the design of the mold poured for the test bars
can be optimized for the bismuth-containing alloys.
The Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) was used to
examine as-cast microstructures and the fracture surfaces
of the tensile bars both after room temperature and 250ºC
(482°F) testing. Figure 14 shows a back-scattered electron
(BSE) image and results from energy-dispersive spectros-
copy (EDS) of the phases present in as-cast Alloy 1. In
BSE images, the higher the atomic number the lighter the
phase will appear in the image. Therefore lead and bis-
muth, which have higher atomic numbers than copper, will
appear as white while phases having lower atomic number
elements will appear darker. The light phase in Fig. 14(a)
is the bismuth; Fig. 14(b) is the EDS for the copper-tin
rich intermetallic. These copper-tin particles are the alpha
and delta lamellar phase mentioned previously. The matrix
contains copper and tin.
25
 Copyright 2010 American Foundry Society, www.afsinc.org. Reprinted with permission.

(a) N6178-4S, 25X (b) N6178-4S, 100X

Figure 10. Micrographs of Alloy 1 (5% Bi), as-polished, tensile tested at room temperature.

(a) N6180-3, 25X (b) N6180-3, 100X

Figure 11. Micrographs of Alloy 2 (10% Bi), as-polished, tensile tested at room temperature.

(a) N6183-3, 25X (b) N6183-3, 100X

Figure 12. Micrographs of Alloy 3 (10% Pb), as-polished, tensile tested at room temperature.

26 International Journal of Metalcasting/Winter 10

 Copyright 2010 American Foundry Society, www.afsinc.org. Reprinted with permission.

SEM of fracture surfaces [Fig. 15(a-c)] shows that Alloy 2
has the most porosity of all the alloys with massive colonies
of interconnected micro-porosity. The BSE images show that
there was in fact considerable bismuth segregation to the grain
boundaries; this segregation was more prevalent in alloys test-
ed at 250ºC. Since the melting point of pure bismuth is 271ºC,
the bismuth phase may not be pure. With some copper present
with the bismuth, the melting point would decrease, and partial
melting at 250ºC is likely. This has been observed in previous
work conducted at company A.3 The fractographs of Alloy 3
(C93700) showed that the morphology of lead was more globu-
lar than bismuth, and the distribution is more random. The lead
phase in this case is pure and, since lead has a melting point of
327ºC, no change in the morphology of the lead phase was seen
between bars tested at room temperature and 250ºC.
Tribological Properties
A comparison of the highest recorded friction force for the
three alloys is presented in Fig. 16. Alloy 1 gives the highest
friction force of 22 lb (0.22 friction coefficient) followed by
Alloy 2 with 18 lb (friction coefficient of 0.18). The bis-
muth-containing materials (Alloys 1 and 2) run with a light-
ly higher friction coefficient. Sahu2 has also reported similar
trends in his study. It is important to mention that, for each
of the three alloys, the friction force drops suddenly at the
beginning of the transient rub and then recovers to a stable
level. This could be due to the reaction force right after ap-
plying the static load. In Fig. 17, a comparison of the block
temperature is given for Alloys 1 to 3. This figure compares
the temperature changes of the three alloys during rubbing.
Alloy 1 seems to have run hotter than Alloys 2 and 3. This
can be attributed to differences in the room temperature for
each of the tests. Figure 18 gives the test block temperature
increase (max-min) for each of the materials and tests. The
increase for the three alloys is almost the same. The average
increase for Alloy 1 is 28.5°C, Alloy 2 is 24.6°C, and Alloy
3 is 27.1°C. Alloys 1 and 3 run at almost the same tempera-
ture, and the difference is within the thermocouple accuracy.
Alloy 2 runs cooler than the other two.

(a) Alloy 1 (N6178-4S),100X

(b) Alloy 2 (N6183-3),100X (c) Alloy 3 (N6183-3), 100X

Figure 13. Micrographs of some selected samples, FeCl3 etch, tensile tested at room temperature.

International Journal of Metalcasting/Winter 10 27

 Copyright 2010 American Foundry Society, www.afsinc.org. Reprinted with permission.

Wear properties of the materials are represented by size/
depth of the wear scars. According to Fig. 19, Alloy 1 gives
the deepest scar, followed by Alloy 2 and finally Alloy 3. The
average depth of the three alloys is 0.0146 in, 0.0142 in., and
0.01, respectively. The amount of material removed from
each alloy is shown in Fig. 20. The material removed from
Alloy 3 represents only 50% of that removed from the Al-
loys 1 and 2. This means that Alloys 1 and 2 are softer than
Alloy 3 and may provide increased conformability and em-
bedability. This could result in a better bearing performance
since those two important characteristics allow the bearing
to adapt to shaft misalignment and to operate in a harsher en-
vironment by absorbing dirt, grit and other foreign particles
that may otherwise damage the shaft. It may be noted that
the rub tests performed in this study were aimed at determin-
ing the friction properties of the various materials and do not
represent in any case an operational wear that bearings see
in service. The shaft and bearing should never be in direct
contact since there is always a lubricant film that separates
both surfaces while in relative motion.

(a) BSE micrograph, 400X (b) Particle 1

(c) Particle 2 (d) Particle 3

Figure 14. SEM micrograph and EDS of phases present in Alloy 1 (N6178-4S).

28 International Journal of Metalcasting/Winter 10

 Copyright 2010 American Foundry Society, www.afsinc.org. Reprinted with permission.

(a) Alloy 1, BSE, 200X

Figure 16. Friction force vs. time.

(b) Alloy 2, BSE, 200X

Figure 17. Specimen temperature vs. time.

(c) Alloy 3, BSE, 200X

Figure 15. Fractographs of tensile test bars tested at
room temperature. Figure 18. Specimen temperature increase vs. alloy type.

International Journal of Metalcasting/Winter 10 29

 Copyright 2010 American Foundry Society, www.afsinc.org. Reprinted with permission.
Figure 19. Specimen scar depth vs. alloy type.
Conclusions
Mechanical and tribological properties of bismuthized and
leaded alloys have been analyzed and are discussed in this
study. The main conclusions drawn from this project are:
1. The mechanical properties of the alloy containing
5% Bi were superior to those of the alloy contain-
ing 10% Bi. This observation should be verified
because of somewhat higher shrinkage porosity in
the latter.
2. The structure of the bismuth-containing alloys is
similar to that of the lead-containing alloy. Howev-
er, the morphology of the lead is more favourable
than that of the bismuth from a bearing characteris-
tics point of view. A massive variation in grain size
was observed in a given sample.
3. The lead-containing alloy has the highest fatigue
limit.
4. The temperature in the rubbing area is similar for
all the three materials.
5. The friction forces for the bismuth-containing
alloys are slightly higher than those of the lead-
containing bearing material. On the other hand,
the friction force of the bismuth-containing alloys
showed less fluctuation during the tests.
6. Based on the amount of material removed during
the rub, the lead-free alloys seem to be softer than
the leaded alloy.
7. Based on the microstructural characteristics and
evaluation of mechanical properties and tribologi-
cal behaviour, the lead-free alloy with 5% Bi ap-
pears to be the alloy of choice for aerospace bear-
ing applications.
8. Thermodynamic analysis may have to be per-
formed to find a better substitute for Pb which
would impart better bearing properties.
30
Figure 20. Removed material.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the staff of CANMET-
MTL’s the Experimental Casting Laboratory for their expert
assistance in melting and casting, Bob Eagleson for mechan-
ical testing, and Dr. Kumar Sadayappan for his input into
technical discussions and project planning. Thanks are also
extended to J.-P. Bédard, R. Payette and B. Liko and the
staff at NRC for preparing the Falex machine and perform-
ing the friction tests.
REFERENCES
1. “Cast Copper Alloy Sleeve Bearings,” Copper Devel-
opment Association Inc., (1997).
2. Sahu S., “Friction and Wear Properties of Leaded and
Bismuthized Bearing Bronzes,” Proceedings from Ma-
terials Solutions ’97 on Wear of Engineering Materials,
Indianapolis, Indiana (15-18 September 1997).
3. Whiting L.V., Sadayappan M., Sahoo M., “Bismuth
and Selenium Impurities in Red Brasses (C83600,
C84400, C89520)”, AFS Transactions, vol. 110, pp
563-578 (2003).
4. Plewes J.T., Loiacono D.N., “Free-Cutting Copper Al-
loys Contain No Lead”, Advanced Materials & Process-
es, vol. 140, no 4, pp 23-27 (1991).
International Journal of Metalcasting/Winter 10