THE ANNALS OF UNIVERSITY “DUNĂREA DE JOS “ OF GALAŢI

FASCICLE VIII, 2000, ISSN 1220-0824

TRIBOLOGY

TRACTION ASPECTS OF THE LINE CONTACT

Petre Lucian Seiciu, Dan Pavelescu

Department of Machine Elements and Tribology, “Politehnica” University Bucharest, Romania,

313 Independentei Spl., Sect. 6, Bucharest 79590, Email: Lucian.Seiciu@k.ro

ABSTRACT.
This paper studies both the calculation and the experimental measurement of
the friction coefficient in the case of the real surfaces. The experiments were done on
a two disk-testing rig (SAE). It was observed the influence of the lubrication factors
in total and partial elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL). A friction coefficient
formula was corrected using the experimental results.

KEYWORDS: Elastohydrodynamic, lubrication, line contact.

1. INTRODUCTION and thermostat device D1 – upper disk; D2 – lower

disk.
The friction coefficient (and traction) is strictly The belt transmission (2) gives 9 speeds of the
connected with the rheological behavior of the oil. shafts. The gears box (3) allows the rotation of the
Often, the effective friction coefficient (at gears for upper disk with different speeds in order to obtain
example) has an instant and local value that depends pure rolling speed or rolling and sliding
F speed.
on several factors: oil properties, surface roughness, 6 7
materials, tangential speed, and load. 4 C 4
Experiments confirmed the influence of some 3 D1
factors on the friction coefficient: Hertzian pressure
(load and/or contact geometry), rolling and sliding
speed and the oil input temperature. Roughness has
its influence through the film parameter Xh, especially
in limit and mixed EHL. 8
Several authors (Drozdov-Acercov, Pavelescu-
Tudor, Bartz-Zechel-Jancza, Kolek-Krzeminski- 2 5 C 5
Freda) [4-7, 11, 12] proposed more and more D2
complex formulae for friction coefficient calculus, in
order to take into account the influence of as many as 1 9
possible of the EHL regime parameters.

2. THE EXPERIMENTAL RIG

The two disk experimental rig allows the
determination of both the film thickness and the
friction torque. The rig is composed of several
electric devices in order to display and record the
measured parameter. The whole installation and the
measurement technology are presented in [7].
The rig allows the variation of several parameters:
load, rolling speed, rolling and sliding speed,
temperature.
Figure 1 presents the cinematic scheme of the
testing rig, where: 1 – electric engine; 2 – belt
transmission; 3 – gear box; 4, 4, 5 and 5 - shafts;
C – coupling; 6 – loading device; 7 – disk box; 8 –
temperature measuring device; 9 – pumping, filtering
Fig. 1 Testing rig (mechanical part)
The loading device (6) is mechanical and allows
loading and unloading with the necessary force. The
temperature device (9) measures temperature both at
the inlet and at the outlet zones of the contact. The
disks are electrically insulated from the rest of the rig.
The parameters measured are the film percent and
the friction torque that takes place between the two
disks (D1 and D2).
Figure 2 shows the electrical devices mounting.
The results can be observed directly on an
oscilloscope (Os), read on a digital multimeter
(D.M.), recorded on paper by an oscillograph (Og.) or
stored electronically by a data acquisition device, all
these connected with a connecting box (C.B.).
 Also, the results can be presented as instant values Also one can see that temperature increase leads
or as mean values on a desired period, using a time to the traction reduction.
integrator device (I.). Traction decreases too while rolling speed
increases. This behavior appears due to the
D1 rheological phenomena in the fluid film.
It results that load has a very important influence
D2 on traction.
I.
D.M.
T.R. 3.5 2.7 kN 5.1 kN
Os. 7.6 kN 8.8 kN
3

Traction [Nm] .
C.B. Og. 2.5
2
A. 1.5
1
Figure 2. The electrical measurement device
The friction that takes place between the two disks 0.5
will generate an angular deformation of the shafts that 0
is transformed in an electrical signal by the 40 50 60 70 80 90
0
tensiometric resistances (T.R.). Temperature [ C]

3. INFLUENCES ON THE TRACTION Fig. 5 Traction variation for 10 m/s

From the many parameters of the EHL regime, 3.5 2.7 kN

load, temperature, and rolling speed have the most Traction [Nm] . 3 5.1 kN
7.6 kN
important influence. We consider a constant 2.5
roughness value (Rz = 1.15 m) obtained after run. 2
1.5
3.5
1
3 Temperature 0.5
Traction [Nm]

2.5 rise 0
2
40 50 60 70 80 90
1.5 0
Temperature [ C]
1
0.5 Fig. 6 Traction variation for 20 m/s
0 Figures 5 and 6 show the temperature influence
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 for four different loads and the same two rolling
Load [kN] speeds as in Figures 3 and 4.
Temperature rise produces traction decrease. This
Fig. 3 Traction variation for 10 m/s phenomenon is more important at lower speed. Yet,
for larger loads, traction has a small variation.
3.5 2.7 kN 5.1 kN
3.5
3 Temperature 3 7.6 kN 8.8 kN
Traction [Nm]

Traction [Nm]

2.5 rise 2.5

2 2
1.5 1.5
1 1
0.5 0.5
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 11 14 17 20 23 26 29 32 35
Load [kN] Rolling speed [m/s]
Fig. 4 Traction variation for 20 m/s
Figures 3 and 4 show the variation of the traction Fig. 7 Traction variation for 90 °C
for six temperatures ranging from 40 °C to 90 °C and Figure 7 shows that at the rolling speed rise,
two pure rolling speeds. traction decreases, especially at lower speed. Here,
It can be seen a strong increase of the traction the traction variation is shown for the same loads as
with the load increase. before and at a 90 °C temperature.
 It can be seen that, for high rolling speed and large 4. A CORECTED FORMULA OF THE
load, traction presents a stationary behavior FRICTION COEFFICIENT
Experiments showed that traction is larger in a
rolling-sliding speed case (as is common at gears) Several formulae for friction coefficient calculus
than the case of pure rolling speed were studied comparatively. We choose two of them
7 for a comparative study with the experimental results.
6 Pavelescu D. and Tudor A. suggested the formula:
Temperature 0.05
  0.036   0E.95 
Traction [Nm]

5
rise  a cr  K 1   
4 (1)
3   H0.15   0Rz
.25

2 which is valid in a certain domain and in which K1 – a

1 constant for additivated or non-additivated oils and
0 ,,E,H,Rz - viscosity, density, materials elasticity,
materials density and surfaces’ micro-geometry non-
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
variants [6].
Load [kN] The measurements made on the testing rig,
Fig. 8 Traction for rolling-sliding speed at 10 m/s presented above, show that the friction coefficient
values are in the domain (0.013  0.025).
9 2.7 kN 5.1 kN
0.04

Friction coefficient .
8 7.6 kN 8.8 kN
Traction [Nm] .

7
6 0.03
5
4 0.02
3
2 0.01
1
0 0
40 50 60 70 80 90 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
0
Temperature [ C] Linear load [kN/m]
Fig. 9 Traction for rolling-sliding speed at 10 m/s
Fig. 10 Friction coefficient variation for formula (1)
Figures 4 and 8 can be used for comparison. In
Figure 10, together with the mentioned
both of them traction variation is presented for the
considerations, shows clearly that formula (1) can be
same conditions: speed, temperature, rolling speed,
roughness and lubricant. used only for loads larger than 2,1  106 N/m.
The difference consists in the presence of the An acceptably formula (for EHL regimes with
sliding speed (for the diagram in Figure 8) va = 10,47 rolling-sliding relative speed) is presented by Kalek-
m/s, corresponding to a sliding-rolling coefficient Krzeminski [12]:
ln 0.326 Vv 0.059G0 0.0029S 
 = 40%, similar to the case of gears. e
 K -K  (2)
For the rolling-sliding case, it can be observed n m 0.828 l 0.203 N
e
that load has a grater influence, traction reaching
values twice larger than in the pure rolling case, while where: S = (v1 – v2)/(v1 + v2) – the sliding/rolling
temperature has practically no influence. ratio, v1,2 – the disk speed, and the non-dimensional
Figures 5 and 9 are drawn for the same conditions parameters of the EHL regime Vv, G0, Nm are defined
as figures 4 and 8, respectively. in [7].
From their comparison it can be seen that 0.03
Friction coefficient .

temperature has almost no influence on traction, no K-K

matter the load. The load, in its turn, has an important
0.02
influence on traction.
All the experiments presented in this paper were
made using: 0.01
- an extreme pressure additivated mineral oil for E
gears with the dynamic viscosity 0 = 0.441 Pas at 0
20 C, temperature coefficient  = 0.076 C-1 and
200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
pressure coefficient  = 2.15 GPa-1;
- the disks were made of hardened steel and had Linear load [kN/m]
the roughness Ra = 1.156 m and Rz = 1.071 m. Fig.11 Friction coefficient variation with load
 Figure 11 presents the variation of the friction the rheological phenomena in the fluid film.
coefficient K-K resulted from (2) and of the Generally, low speed combined with low load
conventional friction coefficient measured (E). lead to important traction variation.
It can be seen that the experimental results are An important observation is that temperature
larger than the calculated ones. Their variations are influences traction in the pure rolling speed case,
similar, so one can conclude, for the studied case, that while it has a low influence in the rolling-sliding case.
the formula (2) can be modified with a coefficient Ks Based on experimental study, the authors
= 1,64. The new formula is: succeeded in improving a friction coefficient formula
ln 0.326 Vv 0.059G0 0.0029S  for a lubricated Hertzian line contact.
e The authors would be grateful for any suggestions
 S  1.64  (3)
0.828 ln 0.203 N m and shared experience.
e
0.024 REFERENCES
Friction coefficient .

0.022
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0.02
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