POLYACRYLAMIDE - NEW OPPORTUNITY IN LUBRICATION

The synthetic lubricants utilisation, especially of liquid ones, was developed in the last 2 decades because of the new fields of development such as aerospace technique, nanotechnology, cryogenic technologies, medical technique a.s.o. Polyacrylamide (PAM) is one of the most widely used and technically important water soluble polymers. The lubricant solutions were made using different solvents combinations based on water, NaCl salt, ethylene alcohol and glycerin. The tests have been carried out on a Brookfield viscometer, ball-on-disk CSM microtribometer and 4-ball machine. The tests were performed using metallic samples made from different types of steels usually used for lubricated couples construction. Also, the paper presents the influence of the lubricants characteristics based on PAM on their tribological behaviour.