LUBRICATION OF ROLLING - SLIDING POLYMER CONTACTS

The submitted article deals with polymer or hybrid contacts that are an alternative to a steel-steel contact in applications where one or both components have a low Young modulus. With respect to engineering applications such as cams or gears, a rolling-sliding ratio (SRR) between the contact surfaces is presented and the influence on film thickness is analyzed. Lubricated polymer contacts work mainly in the iso-viscous regime of the elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) where a dependence of lubricant viscosity on the contact pressure is weak. The measurements were conducted on a ball-on-disc tribometer using the optical interferometry method to evaluate the distribution of film thickness. The experimentally obtained data are compared with the predictions for the soft EHL contacts and discussed. The experiments can contribute to the knowledge of the soft lubricated contacts and improvement of the design of gears made of polymer materials.