• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.765-771
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• 2020

Automatic lubrication devices are applied in various fields, such as huge machinery, construction machinery or commercial vehicles, to lower maintenance costs and protect the devices. In addition, the automatic lubrication device reduces frequent component failures cause by friction and allows the machine to replace the lubricating oil replenishment work carried out by the manager. However, the automatic lubricating device used in large machinery or commercial vehicles is relatively large, containing a large amount of lubricant in the space to be lubricated. On the other hand, a smart factory, such as a home appliance or cosmetics factory, lacks space to install large automatic lubrication devices, and it is difficult to distribute electricity. Therefore, there is a need for an automatic lubrication device that can be used in various environments that require lubrication. In this paper, a small automatic lubrication device is proposed for smart factories that have changed parts of existing factories, such as electronics factories, to minimize friction arising from mechanical parts, etc. In particular, the structure of lubricating pumps and component parts that are the core of automatic lubrication devices was described so that they could be utilized in various fields. Finally, a test bed environment is established for the proposed automatic lubrication device to evaluate its performance and verify its applicability.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.155-164
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• 2002

The journal bearings use in machine parts which move relative to each other and those reduce friction and wear of journals. The journal bearings are designed to operate in the hydyodynamic lubrication regime, but elastohydrodynamic lubrication nay occur if the pressures are too high or the running speeds are too low at machine elements. It is the phenomenon that the lubricant film is broken and some parts of surfaces are in rolling contact, so that wear will increase in mixed lubrication regime. The purpose of this study is to minimize the wear rate of journal bearings for extending machine life. The wear mate in mixed lubricated regime is selected as objective function because most of wear of the journal bearings develops in elastohydrodynamic lubrication. The journal bearings we represented by a bearing radius, shaft radius, and bearing width, but the bearing radius only is selected as design variables due to a bearing radius has an influence on friction loss, stability limit velocity, and film parameter, which are used as constraints. For numerical calculation, PLBA, that is a class of the RQP algorithm, is used.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.49-54
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• 2018

Hydraulic reciprocating seal has been widely used to prevent fluid leakage in hydraulic systems. Also, hydraulic reciprocating seal plays a significant role to provide lubricant film at contacting interface to minimize tribological problems due to sliding with counter material. To predict lifetime of hydraulic reciprocating seal, quantitative understanding of wear characteristics with respect to operating conditions such as normal force and sliding speed is needed. In this work, effect of sliding speed on wear of polyurethane (PU) hydraulic reciprocating seal were experimentally investigated using a pin-on-disk tribo-tester. The wear characteristics of PU specimens were quantitatively determined by comparing the confocal microscope data before and after test. It was found that the wear rate of PU specimens decreased from $4.9{\times}10^{-11}mm^3$ to $1.1{\times}10^{-11}mm^3/Nm$ as sliding speed increased from 120 mm/s to 940 mm/s. Also, it was observed that the friction decreased slightly as the sliding speed increased. Improvement of lubrication state with increasing sliding speed was likely to be responsible for this enhanced friction and wear characteristics. This result also suggests that decrease in sliding distance between PU elastomer and counter materials at lower sliding speed is preferred. Furthermore, the quantitative assessment of wear characteristics of PU specimen may be useful in prediction of lifetime of PU hydraulic reciprocating seal if the allowed degree of wear for failure of the seal is provided.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2019

Demand for plastic gears are increasing in many industries due to their low production cost, light weight, applicability without lubricant, corrosion resistance and high resilience. Despite these benefits, utilizing plastic gears is limited due to their poor material properties. In this work, DLC coating was applied to improve the tribological properties of polyamide66 gear. 0 V, 40 V, and 70 V of negative bias voltages were selected as a deposition parameter in DC magnetron sputtering system. Pin-on-disk experiment was performed in order to investigate the wear characteristics of the gears. The results of the pin-on-disk experiment showed that DLC coated polyamide66 with 40 V of negative bias voltage had the lowest friction coefficient value (0.134) and DLC coated PA66 with 0 V of negative bias voltage showed the best wear resistance ($9.83{\times}10^{-10}mm^3/N{\cdot}mm$) among all the specimens. Based on these results, durability tests were conducted for DLC coated polyamide66 gears with 0 V of negative bias voltage. The tests showed that the temperature of the uncoated polyamide66 gear increased to about $37^{\circ}C$ while the DLC coated gear saturated at about $25^{\circ}C$. Also, the power transmission efficiency of the DLC coated gear increased by about 6% compared to those without coating. Weight loss of the polyamide66 gears were reduced by about 73%.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.21-27
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• 2023

Surface texturing is widely applied to friction surfaces of various machine elements. Most of the theoretical studies have focused on isothermal (ISO) analyses which consider constant lubricant viscosity. However, there have been limited studies on the effect of oil temperature increase owing to viscous shear. Following the first part of the present study that investigated the effects of film-temperature boundary condition (FTBC) and groove number on the thermohydrodynamic (THD) lubrication characteristics of a surface-textured parallel thrust bearing with multiple rectangular grooves, this study focuses on the effect of groove depths. Current study numerically analyzes the continuity, Navier-Stokes, and energy equations with temperature-viscosity-density relations using a commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software, FLUENT. The results of variation in temperature, velocity, and pressure distributions as well as load-carrying capacity (LCC) and friction force indicate that groove depth and FTBC significantly influence the temperature distribution and pressure generation. The LCC is maximum near the groove depth at which the vortex starts, smaller than the ISO result. For intense grooves, the LCC of THD may be larger than that from ISO. The frictional force decreases as the groove becomes deeper, and decreases more significantly in the case of THD. The study shows that groove depth significantly influences the THD lubrication characteristics of surface-textured parallel thrust bearings.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.103-110
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• 2024

Gas foil thrust bearings (GFTBs) are oil-free self-acting hydrodynamic bearings that support axial loads with a low friction during airborne operation. They need solid lubricants to reduce dry-friction between the runner and top foil and minimize local wears on their surfaces during start-up and shutdown processes. In this study, we evaluate the lift-off speeds and load capacity performance of a GFTB with Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) surface coating by measuring drag torques during a series of experimental tests at increasing ambient temperatures of 25, 75 and 110℃. An electric heat gun provides hot air to the test GFTB operating in the closed booth to increase the ambient temperature. Test results show that the increasing ambient temperature delays the lift-off speed and decreases the load capacity of the test GFTB. An early developed prediction tool well predicts the measured drag torques at 60 krpm. After all tests, post inspections of the surface coating of the top foil are conducted. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) images imply that abrasive wear and oxidation wear are dominant during the tests at 25℃ and 110℃, respectively. A quantitative energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) microanalysis reveals that the weight percentages of carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen decrease, while that of fluorine increases significantly during the highest-temperature tests. The study demonstrates that the increasing ambient temperature noticeably deteriorates the static performances and degrades the surface coating of the test GFTB.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.219-225
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• 2013

In this study, the tribological characteristics of silver films that were deposited on a glass substrate by electroless plating were investigated. The electroless-plating method has many notable advantages. It is easy and economical to obtain solid films using this coating process, and it can be applied to both nonconducting and conducting substrates. In this study, silver was selected as the electroless-plating material because it is one of the most common materials used as a solid lubricant. The mechanical properties of silver electroless-plated specimens were investigated for various coating conditions. The thickness of the coating could be controlled by varying the electroless-plating time. The properties of the coatings were investigated using AFM, SEM, and a tribotester.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.324-329
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• 2009

In this study a complex design fitness analysis of journal bearings is carried out for the LPLi rotary-vane fuel pump application, as an external and horizontal installation, in LPG vehicles. Bearings considered in the analyses are plain and 3-axial groove journal bearings. Upon reflecting the fact that the primary failure mode of bearings in the application is a premature friction and wear failure of bearing metal due to a very low viscosity of liquid fuel LPG as a bearing lubricant, the performance factors of bearings used in an evaluation process of design fitness are a load carrying capacity and vibration suppression ability relative to a rated speed. At this time the design variables of bearings are a radial clearance and length. Results show that, in terms of both of the load carrying capacity and vibration suppression ability, the plain journal bearings are superior to the 3-axial groove journal bearings and among the plain bearings the smaller the bearing clearance (5>10>$15\;{\mu}m$) is and the longer the bearing length (6<8<10<12<14 mm) is, the better the bearing performance is.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.467-470
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• 2004

Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC) thin film is a semiconductor with high mechanical hardness, low friction coefficient, high chemical inertness, and optical transparency. DLC thin films have widespread applications as protective coatings and solid lubricant coatings in areas such as Hard Disk Drive (HDD) and Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (MEMS). In this work, the wear characteristics of DLC thin films deposited on silicon substrates using a DC-magnetron sputtering system were analyzed. The wear tracks were measured with an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM). To identify the sp2 and sp3 hybridization of carbon bonds and other bonds Raman spectroscopy was used. The structural information of DLC thin films was obtained with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and wear tests were conducted by using a micro-pin-on-reciprocator tester. Results showed that the wear characteristics were dependent on the sputtering conditions. The wear rate could be correlated with the bonding state of the DLC thin film.

• Journal of KSNVE
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.643-651
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• 1999

A brief description of the current technology (contact-start-stop) employed in most of today's hard disk drive is presented. The dynamics and head/disk interactions during a start/stop process are very complicated and no one has been able to accurately model the interactions. Thus, the head/disk interface that meets the start/stop durability and stiction requirements are always developed statistically. In arriving at a solution. many sets of statistical tests are run by varying several parameters. such as, the carbon overcoat thickness. lubricant thickness. disk surface roughness, etc. Consequently, the cost associated III developing an interface could be significant since the outcome is difficult to predict. An alternative method known as Load/Unload technology alters the problem set. such that. the start/stop performance can be designed in a predictable manner. Although this techno¬logy offers superior performance and significantly reduces statistical testing time, it also has some potential problems. However. contrary to the CSS technology. most of the problems can be solved by design and not by trial and error. One critical problem is that of head/disk contacts during the loading and unloading processes. These contact can cause disk and slider damage because the contacts are likely to occur at high disk speeds resulting in large friction forces. Use of glass substrate disks also may present problems if not managed correctly. Due to the low thermal conductivity of glass substrates. any head/disk contacts may result in erasure due to frictional heating of the head/disk interface. In spite of these and other potential problems. the advantage with L/UL system is that these events can be understood. analyzed. and solved in a deterministic manner.