Nanomechanical and analytical investigations on tribological layers for wear protection in slow running roller bearings

Manuela Reichelt (1) , Thomas Weirich (1) , Silvia Richter (1) , Anke Aretz (1) , Matthias Bueckins (1) , Thomas Wolf (2) , P. W. Gold (2) , Joachim Mayer (1)

1 Central Facility for Electron Microscopy
2 Institut for Machine Elements and Machine Design

In a tribological system consisting of roller thrust bearings and various lubricants, we investigated reaction layers formed under the presence of lubricants with low wear protection, high wear and fatigue protection as well as high wear but low fatigue protection. The bearings were tested under heavy-duty conditions in a FE-8 test rig in order to asses rapidly the efficiency of different reaction layer-systems. Chemical composition and microstructure analysis of the layers was subsequently carried out by transmission electron microscopy on thin cross sections prepared by the focused ion beam technique. The nanomechanical properties of the different tribological layers were analysed by nanoindentation. The formation and structure of the layer system, and thus the ability to protect against wear and fatigue, depends on the lubrication and additive, respectively. Our results indicate that wear protection not only relies on the reaction layer itself but also on the properties of the combined system of the reaction layer and an underlying tribomutation layer.

Mots clés: Physical Sciences

Manuela Reichelt, Thomas Weirich, Silvia Richter, Anke Aretz, Matthias Bueckins, et al.. Nanomechanical and analytical investigations on tribological layers for wear protection in slow running roller bearings. Philosophical Magazine, 2006, 86 (33-35), pp.5477-5495. ⟨10.1080/14786430600786644⟩. ⟨hal-00513714⟩