STUDY ON TRIBOLOGICAL BEHAVIOR OF WATER-LUBRICATED BEARINGS

Abstract

Water-lubricated compound rubber bearings make use of new engineering complex material to replace precious metal as frictional pairs, and natural water to replace mineral oil as lubricant. They enable energy conservation and are environmental friendly and can be widely applied in many engineering fields such as shipping, machinery, petroleum industry, chemical industry, water conservancy, agriculture mining, etc. Experimental research, in which friction coefficient and wear extent act as performance index, was operated for different thickness, hardness and filler content of compound rubber in this paper. Effect of surface deformation and filler content on lubricating property of water-lubricated compound bearing was explored sufficiently. The experimental results indicate that friction coefficient decreases with increasing thickness of compound rubber; friction coefficient has augmented trend with increasing hardness of compound rubber; friction coefficient and wear extent have decreased trend when filler content increases; with the increase of short fiber content, friction coefficient increases but wear extent decreases. The work offers theoretical argument for technological design and practical application of compound rubber bearing.