Effects of groove-textured surface combined with Sn–Ag–Cu lubricant on friction-induced vibration and noise of GCr15 bearing steel

doi:10.1016/j.triboint.2020.106316

Tribology International

Volume 148, August 2020, 106316

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.triboint.2020.106316 Get rights and content

Highlights

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The noise is suppressed by the cooperate effect of grooves and Sn–Ag–Cu.
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The grooves could suppress the scream and cause the low-frequency chatter.
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The amplitude of frictional force fluctuation is increased by Sn–Ag–Cu.
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CASs profile with obvious wrinkles could suppress the vibration and noise.

Abstract

Taking GCr15 steel as the research object, the groove-textured surfaces (GTSs) and the composite antifriction surfaces (CASs) with the grooves and Sn–Ag–Cu were prepared. Experimental researches on the tribological performance, friction-induced vibration and noise of SS (smooth surface), GTSs and CASs were conducted. The results showed that SS exhibited the obviously abrasive wear characteristics, thus the uneven surface was obtained, leading to the high-frequency scream. The fluctuation of friction force caused by the grooves on GTSs could suppress the high-frequency scream but cause the low-frequency chatter. The cooperate effect of grooves and Sn–Ag–Cu increased the fluctuation amplitude of friction force, hence CASs profile with obvious wrinkles was formed, suppressing the friction-induced vibration and noise.

Graphical abstract

Introduction

GCr15 steel is one of the most widely used bearing steel with good anti-friction and anti-fatigue performance. It has been widely used in aircraft, high-speed trains, engines, marine equipment and other bearing system of high-end equipment. Meanwhile, the complex working environment and demanding operation precision of the high-end equipment requires the bearing system to have the better working performance and precision. However, the friction-induced vibration and noise of GCr15 widely exists in the bearing system of the high-end equipment, leading to the vibration and wear of the interface. The working accuracy and service life of the bearing is reduced, which restricts the application of GCr15 steel in the high-end equipment [[1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]].

The friction-induced noise is usually divided into two categories: low-frequency noise (0–500 Hz) and high-frequency noise (500–18000 Hz). The friction-induced vibration and noise is affected by load, velocity, surface morphology, and other factors, among them one or more changes would affect the friction-induced vibration and noise. At present, there is still no the complete scientific explanation about the mechanism and characteristics of the friction-induced vibration and noise. The lack of knowledge is the relationship between the surface morphology and the noise generation, as well as the internal relation between the wear mechanism and the noise. It is still necessary to further study the methods on reducing the friction-induced vibration and noise [[7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13]].

The experimental researches on the friction-induced vibration and noise have been carried out by some researchers. The tribological performance and morphological feature of friction surface have an important influence on the intensity of the vibration and noise [[14], [15], [16]]. Chen et al. [17] carried out the experimental studies on the relationship between the friction behavior and friction-induced noise. The results showed that when the friction coefficient reached to a critical value, the friction surface produced the noise. There was the correlation between the friction-induced noise and the surface feature of the interface. The dynamic stability of the tribology system between the brake block and the brake disc was investigated by Massi et al. [18]. The results showed that in the braking stage, the friction surface where the scream occurred had cracks and spalling, and the frictional surface without the significant noise was smooth. The experimental research on the friction-induced vibration and noise of the brake block was carried out by Sherif et al. [19]. The results showed that under the cyclic loading, the stress layer of the elastic material with weak stiffness was gradually separated on surface, which resulted in the friction-induced vibration and noise. However, changing the contact condition from elastic to plastic could effectively suppress the friction-induced vibration and noise. J. Yang et al. [20] studied the rotational friction performance of PMMA/steel under the different angular displacement amplitudes. The results showed that the friction coefficients fluctuated more and more obviously with the increase of test time, and the wear mechanism changed from the fatigue wear to the abrasive wear.

The groove-textured surface could change the contact state of the interface and break the continuity of the frictional force and surface, which reduced the intensity of the vibration and noise in the friction process [21,22]. The effect of the groove-textured surface on the friction-induced vibration and noise was investigated by J. L. Mo et al. [13]. The results showed that the self-excited vibration of the friction system could be disturbed and suppressed effectively to reduce the friction-induced noise by the fluctuation of the frictional force. The effects of the gradient structures of Ni₃Al composites (GNMMCs) on the friction performance, friction-induced vibration and noise were investigated by G. C. Lu et al. [23]. The results showed that the synergistic effect of the lubricant and gradient structure could effectively reduce the high-frequency noise in the interface. The contact surface of the gradient structure has the good ability of absorb deformation to reduce the self-excited vibration caused by the friction. The effects of the damping elements with groove-textured surface on friction vibration were investigated by D. W. Wang et al. [24]. The results showed that the damping element (SBR) with groove-textured surface could effectively suppress the self-excited vibration of the friction system. The vibration amplitude could be reduced by setting the grooves in the middle region of SBR, and the vibration frequency could be eliminated by setting the grooves in the leading and trailing edges of SBR.

The composite antifriction technology that combines grooves with solid lubricant could effectively improve the contact state of interface. The research on the cooperative effect of textured surface and solid lubricant on tribological properties of alumina/TiC was carried out by Y. Q. Xing et al. [25]. The results showed that the tribological properties of the composite materials were effectively improved by the textured surface combined with WS₂ lubricant. The self-repairing performance of M50 self-lubricating composite materials was investigated by X. Y. Liu et al. [26]. The results showed that the Sn–Ag–Cu with the good ductility formed a lubricating film on the surface during the friction process, which improved the antifriction performance of M50 steel. Meanwhile, during the friction process, Sn–Ag–Cu could produce the intermetallic compounds and oxides, which improved the strength and antifriction performance of the lubricating-film [[27], [28], [29], [30]].

At present, there is a lack of research on the correlation between the surface profile and the friction-induced vibration and noise. Furthermore, there are also very few literatures about the friction-induced vibration and noise of GCr15 steel [[31], [32], [33]]. The research on vibration and noise reduction of GCr15 steel is an important problem to be solved urgently in engineering application. In this work, GCr15 composite antifriction surface with the grooves and Sn–Ag–Cu were prepared. Meanwhile, the cooperative effects of the grooves and Sn–Ag–Cu on the friction-induced vibration and noise were investigated by analyzing the signals of the frictional force, vibration acceleration and sound pressure in the test. The cooperative action of the grooves and Sn–Ag–Cu increased the amplitude of the frictional force fluctuation and obtained the surface profile with the obvious wrinkles, which suppressed the low-frequency chatter and the high-frequency scream. The research work could provide theoretical and experimental support to reduce the friction-induced vibration and noise of GCr15 in engineering.

Section snippets

Samples reparation

Firstly, according to Sn–Ag–Cu compositions (see Table 1), the spherical Sn–Ag–Cu powders were prepared by the vacuum ball milling and the vacuum atomization technology, as shown in Fig. 1a. Table 2 shows the compositions and material properties of SnAgCu. The atomization temperature was 1100–1200 °C, the atomization pressure was 5 MPa, and the particle size of spherical powders was 20–50 μm. Furthermore, the test samples of GCr15 bearing steel with the grooves of different widths and spacings

Effects of different surface features on friction coefficient and noise pressure

As shown in Fig. 3, the average friction coefficients of the three samples increase with sliding time, all of which enter the friction stable stage at about 500s, and the average friction coefficient of SS is the maximum. In the friction stable stage (500–1800s), compared with SS (0.727), the average friction coefficients of GTSs-900 and CASs-900 are respectively decreased by 33% and 38.8%. Furthermore, with the same grooves density, the friction coefficient of the composite antifriction

Conclusions

In this paper, the effects of the surface texture combined with Sn–Ag–Cu on the friction-induced vibration and noise of GCr15 bearing steel were studied. According to the above research results, the following conclusions could be drawn:

(1)
The wear and noise reduction effects of CASs are the best. Compared with SS and GTSs-900, the average friction coefficient of CASs-900 respectively decrease by about 38.8% and 8.6%, and the average equivalent sound pressure respectively decrease by about 27.8%

Credit author statement

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the descriptions are accurate and agreed by all authors.

Xiaoliang Shi: Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision. Yawen Xue: Data curation, Writing-Original draft preparation. Hongyan Zhou: Writing-Reviewing and Editing. Guanchen Lu: Validation, Investigation. Jin Zhang: Visualization, Investigation.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported Cultivation project for High-value Intellectual Property of Hubei Intellectual Property Bureau (No.2019–45). Authors are also grateful to X.L. Nie and M.J. Yang, in Material Research and Test Center of WUT for their kind help with EPMA and EDS.

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Effects of groove-textured surface combined with Sn–Ag–Cu lubricant on friction-induced vibration and noise of GCr15 bearing steel

Highlights

Abstract

Graphical abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Samples reparation

Effects of different surface features on friction coefficient and noise pressure

Conclusions

Credit author statement

Declaration of competing interest

Acknowledgments

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Tribol Int

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Tribol Int

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Appl Surf Sci

Tribol Int

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