TY - JOUR A1 - Burbank, John Theodore A1 - Woydt, Mathias T1 - Friction and wear reductions under slip-rolling contact through chemically reactive tribofilm generation during pre-conditioning of steel alloys JF - Wear N2 - The running-in phase of mechanical systems is critical from a tribological standpoint, though poorly understood. Microcracks accelerate material failure and wear during this phase of heightened friction. With this in mind, the ultimate goal of this current work is to transfer the running-in phase into the final step of the mechanical finishing process through the targeted pre-conditioning of novel, high toughness steel bearings without thermo-chemical treatments and compare these to conventional, case-hardened steels. This pre-conditioning involved the targeted implementation of two specific lubricant packages, the first with CaCO3 as the active ingredient and the second with MoDTC as the active ingredient, to generate chemically reactive tribolayers (tribofilms) on twin disk testing rigs. Pre-conditioning was carried out up to 104 load cycles (approximately 25 min). The films generated in pre-conditioning were analyzed by SEM-EDX with Element-Mapping, Raman spectroscopy, and XPS to elucidate their molecular composition and concentration on the sample surfaces. The combination of these methods of analysis gave a clear indication that 104 cycles were sufficient to generate stable chemical tribofilms. CaO and CaCO3 were the main components of the tribofilm from the first lubricant package, while MoS2, MoO2 and MoO3 were the main components from the second lubricant package. Tribofilm-protected samples were then subjected to slip-rolling endurance testing (T=+120 °C, 10,000,000 cycles, approximately 19 days in a factory fill engine oil) to determine any changes in friction behavior or wear performance. Some significant reductions in coefficients of friction at the end of endurance testing were observed, though in certain cases, no definitive improvement was observed. In contrast, very strong reductions in wear were observed across the entire spectrum of materials and testing loads. In some cases, sample surface wear reduction from pre-conditioning via tribofilms reached over 90%. The observed improvements to friction behavior and wear performance are indicative of a technically simple, cost- and energy-efficient pre-conditioning method that may prove to be competitive with existing thermochemical treatments for steel alloys. KW - Tribofilm KW - Running-in KW - MoDTC KW - Slip-rolling KW - Friction KW - Wear PY - 2015 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wear.2015.06.006 SN - 0043-1648 VL - 338-339 SP - 133 EP - 143 PB - Elsevier B.V. CY - Amsterdam AN - OPUS4-33556 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -