SIMULATION OF OPTIMAL MIX OF SIO2-TIO2-AL2O3 NANO ADDITIVES FOR THE MINIMAL WEAR AND COEFFICIENT OF FRICTION OF LUBRICANT USING FUZZY LOGIC

Abstract

Nano-particles of oxides of various metals are typically added with the base lubricants for enhancing the tribological properties, especially the wear and coefficient of friction of the lubricants.  However, it is required to determine the optimum proportion of mix of the nano-additives in order to obtain the desirable characteristics gained through the addition of various oxides of metals mixed with the lubricants. This paper deals with the application of fuzzy logic to simulate the various proportions of a mix of three nano-additives of SiO2, Al2O3 and TiO2 with the corresponding predicted values of tribological characteristics of wear and coefficient of friction. The limited number of outcomes obtained from a full factorial design of experiments carried out with these three nano-additives at three different levels of mixing, are used as inputs to the fuzzy logic simulation. This approach facilitates simulating as many combinations of nano-additives as possible with the base lubricant oil along with the predicted output of characteristics of interest, which otherwise will be cumbersome to carry out the experiments for all the combinations of mix of additives.