On the Role and Mechanism of Dry Triboparticulate Lubrication

Heshmat, H., Godet, M. and Berthier, Y. “On the Role and Mechanism of Dry Triboparticulate Lubrication,” 49th STLE Annual Meeting, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, May 1-5, 1994, (1995) Lubrication Engineering, Volume 51 (7), pp. 557-564.

Experience indicates that a wide spectrum of tribological interactions cannot be treated by the separate approaches that have always been assigned to the tribology of bulk on the one hand and the tribology of interfaces on the other hand.  Experimental evidence from the literature and from the authors’ recent experiments is cited in support of the hypothesis that both morphological and hydrodynamic effects are at work in all interactions and that only their respective ratios differ from regime to regime.  Thus, interface tribology demonstrates that friction and wear are more than intrinsic material properties.  It also unifies all of tribology from hydrodynamic lubrication to dry friction through flow concepts and thus reconciles mechanics and tribology.  in this paper, interface tribology is reviewed, and wear and fiction modeling for powder-lubricated systems as well as for solid contacts vis-a-vis velocity accommodation is proposed.

            Further research is needed before the proposed approach can be used to model the wear of friction.  Future research in wear is discussed with particular emphasis on sources and internal flows.