A Bulk-Flow Theory for Turbulence in Lubricant Films

1973 ◽  
Vol 95 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. G. Hirs

The purpose of this study on the turbulent lubricant film is: 1 To give a brief outline of a new theory called bulk-flow theory; 2 To investigate to what extent results of theories based on law of wall and mixing length concept agree with the newly developed theory; 3 To provide a theoretical basis for the design of bearings lubricated by fluids of low kinematic viscosity.

Author(s):  
Koya Yamada ◽  
Atsushi Ikemoto ◽  
Tsuyoshi Inoue ◽  
Masaharu Uchiumi

Rotor-dynamic fluid force (RD fluid force) of turbomachinery is one of the causes of the shaft vibration problem. Bulk flow theory is the method for analyzing this RD fluid force, and it has been widely used in the design stage of machine. The conventional bulk flow theory has been carried out under the assumption of concentric circular shaft's orbit with a small amplitude. However, actual rotating machinery's operating condition often does not hold this assumption, for example, existence of static load on the machinery causes static eccentricity. In particular, when such a static eccentricity is significant, the nonlinearity of RD fluid force may increase and become non-negligible. Therefore, conventional bulk flow theory is not applicable for the analysis of the RD fluid force in such a situation. In this paper, the RD fluid force of the annular plain seal in the case of circular whirling orbit with static eccentricity is investigated. The case with both the significant static eccentricity and the moderate whirling amplitude is considered, and the perturbation analysis of the bulk-flow theory is extended to investigate the RD fluid force in such cases. In this analysis, the assumption of the perturbation solution is extended to both static terms and whirling terms up to the third order. Then, the additional terms are caused by the coupling of these terms through nonlinearity, and these three kinds of terms are considered in the extended perturbation analysis of the bulk flow theory. As a result, a set of nonlinear analytical equations of the extended perturbation analysis of the bulk flow theory, for the case with both the significant static eccentricity and the moderate whirling amplitude, is deduced. The RD fluid force for such cases is analyzed, and the occurrence of constant component, backward synchronous component, and super-harmonic components in the RD fluid force is observed in addition to the forward synchronous component. The representation of RD fluid force coefficients (RD coefficients) are modified for the case with significant static eccentricity, and the variation of RD fluid force coefficients for the magnitude of static eccentricity is analyzed. These analytical results of RD fluid force and its RD coefficients are compared with the numerical results using finite difference analysis and experimental results. As a result, the validity of the extended perturbation analysis of the bulk-flow theory for the case with both the significant static eccentricity and the moderate whirling amplitude is confirmed.


1990 ◽  
Vol 112 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dongchu Zhao

A method for measuring the lubricant condition with strain gage in rolling element bearings and the instrument used are introduced. In order to illustrate the method and the instrument, the theory of measuring lubricant films in rolling element bearings using strain technique, test apparatus, microcomputer hardware as well as software, flow charts for the main program and subprograms, are first described in detail. In addition, the lubricant film thickness is measured for several different lubricants and results are compared with theoretical ones. It is demonstrated that using the method and the instrument introduced in this paper, one can measure the lubricant condition inside bearings very accurately.


1974 ◽  
Vol 96 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. G. Hirs

Turbulent film flow theories can only be verified on the basis of a large number of experimental results. Since it will be useful to handle these experimental results more or less systematically and to get some idea of the amount of work yet to be done, the first objective of this paper is to set up a classification system for turbulent film flow experiments. The second objective is to verify the bulk flow theory on the basis of the limited number of experimental results available in the literature and to show this theory to be compatible with these results.


Author(s):  
Kenji Yanagisawa ◽  
Youichi Kawakubo ◽  
Masato Yoshino

In Hard Disk Drives, lubricants are very important materials to reduce head and disk wear. Therefore, it is necessary to know the lubricant depletion under flying heads. Lubricant depletion due to flying heads has been studied experimentally. We developed simulation program to calculate numerically the change in lubricant thickness under a flying head on a thin-film magnetic disk from 10nm thick lubricant film. In recent HDDs, the lubricants thickness has become molecularly thin and polar lubricants have been used. In this paper, we took account of thickness-dependent lubricants diffusion and viscosity in our simulations to calculate a 1.2 nm thick polar lubricant film used in recent HDDs. The simulated results considering the thickness-dependent diffusion and viscosity showed that depletion was small in molecularly thin lubricant films. We considered it necessary to include thickness-dependent diffusion and viscosity in lubricant depletion simulation.


1998 ◽  
Vol 120 (2) ◽  
pp. 369-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chao Gao ◽  
Tam Vo ◽  
Joel Weiss

The objective of this paper is to demonstrate, from experiments and modeling, how and why molecular orientation of functional end groups of perfluoro-polyether (PFPE) lubricants play an important role in the tribological performance of thin film magnetic disks. These disks typically have an amorphous carbon overcoat upon which a thin lubricant layer is deposited using dip-coating technique. Glancing-angle FTIR (Fourier Transform Infra-Red Spectrometry) is used for measuring molecular orientation of planer functional end groups. A molecular orientation index (MOI) was defined as 1 for randomly oriented functional end groups. The MOI is mathematically derived as 3 (maximum) for lubricant molecules oriented with their functional end groups perpendicular to the surface, and as 0 (minimum) if lubricant molecules oriented with their functional end groups parallel to the surface. The MOI is shown to depend on processing conditions and lubricant film thickness. The tribological performance of the lubricant films was evaluated using drag-mode contact start-stop testing. It was found that wear durability of the lubricant films (~2 nm) with MOI ~ 1.5 is a few times better than those with MOI ~ 0.5 to 1.0. No significant difference in the amount of bonded lubricant film was detected over the range of MOI studied. Nor was there a detectable relationship with hydrophobicity. It was inferred from decreased MOI values due to thermal effects and storage time that a smaller MOI value corresponds to a lower free energy state of the lubricant film. Interestingly, MOI values for bonded lubricant films for Process A are found to be close to 3.0, suggesting that almost all functional end groups in the bonded films are oriented perpendicular to the carbon surface, close to 2.0 for process B, and close to 0 for process C, meaning that almost all functional end groups in the bonded films from process C are oriented parallel to the carbon surface. Relationship between physical/chemical bonding configurations and MOI values are graphically presented in detail. Based on this relation, a simple model on lubricant film structures for the three processes studied is presented. The model MOI values agree very well with measured MOI values as a function of lubricant thickness for all three processes, and the model also appears to account for the observed tribology performance for the MOI values studied (0.5 ~ 1.5).


2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (23) ◽  
pp. 7117-7122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irit Rosenhek-Goldian ◽  
Nir Kampf ◽  
Arie Yeredor ◽  
Jacob Klein

Intermittent sliding (stick–slip motion) between solids is commonplace (e.g., squeaking hinges), even in the presence of lubricants, and is believed to occur by shear-induced fluidization of the lubricant film (slip), followed by its resolidification (stick). Using a surface force balance, we measure how the thickness of molecularly thin, model lubricant films (octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane) varies in stick–slip sliding between atomically smooth surfaces during the fleeting (ca. 20 ms) individual slip events. Shear fluidization of a film of five to six molecular layers during an individual slip event should result in film dilation of 0.4–0.5 nm, but our results show that, within our resolution of ca. 0.1 nm, slip of the surfaces is not correlated with any dilation of the intersurface gap. This reveals that, unlike what is commonly supposed, slip does not occur by such shear melting, and indicates that other mechanisms, such as intralayer slip within the lubricant film, or at its interface with the confining surfaces, may be the dominant dissipation modes.


Author(s):  
Norio Tagawa ◽  
Takao Miki ◽  
Hiroshi Tani

In this study, the lubricant depletion caused by laser heating was investigated for lubricant films with thicknesses greater than and less than one monolayer. The conventional lubricants Zdol2000 and Ztetrao12000 were used. It was found that the critical temperature at which lubricants start to deplete by laser heating strongly depends on the lubricant film thickness. To analyze the lubricant depletion mechanism, we carried out temperature programmed desorption (TPD) spectroscopy on the tested lubricant films. It was found that the lubricant depletion characteristics induced by laser heating could be explained using the experimental TPD spectroscopy results for the tested lubricant films. It was also found that the depletion mechanism involved the desorption or decomposition of the lubricant molecules that interacted with the diamond-like carbon thin films when the lubricant film thickness was less than one monolayer.


Author(s):  
Hiroo Taura ◽  
Toshihiko Takaki ◽  
Masahiro Kawaguchi ◽  
Satoru Kaneko ◽  
Takahisa Kato

This paper shows the effect of ultrathin lubricant films between sliding bodies on Acoustic Emission (AE) signals induced by the sliding friction. Experiments were conducted with a ball-on-disk friction tester to measure the friction coefficient, the raw AE signals and the root-mean-squarevalues of the AE signals (the AErms signals). The ball was a glass ball of 5mm diameter. The disk was a magnetic disk used for 2.5 inch HDD with a DLC protective layer on its surface, and was coated with PFPE Z-dol 4000 about 1.5nm thick. The AErms signals kept a low level for some time after the start of the test, and then increased. Its time variation was similar to that of friction coefficient. After the friction test, the circumferential distribution of the lubricant film thickness was measured with an ellipsometer. The distribution demonstrated the reduction of the lubricant film thickness at the circumferential position where the magnitude of AE signals became large. These facts showed that the AE signals correlated well with the lubricant film thickness.


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