Environmental legislations prescribe globally more and more environmentally acceptable lubricants (EALs), based on esters and polyglycols. The compatibility of EALs with tribo-materials used in hydraulic System such sliding parts and oil seals needs to be considered. Aluminium alloys are widely used as lightweight material for sliding parts in many applications. It is necessary to provide optimized design on its surface because of the inferior wear resistance under mixed/ boundary lubrication. The AA6061 alloy (uncoated and coated by different conversion coatings) and an alternative AI-Fe-XY alloy (uncoated) were tested by a continuous sliding test (cylinder-on-disk) under mixed/boundary lubrication with commercially available EALs at 80°C against 100Cr6 Steel. Appropriate combinations of aluminium alloys (coated or uncoated) and commercially available EALs have the potential to compete with conventional tribo-system like steel/steel lubricated with mineral hydraulic fluids under mixed/boundary lubrication.
3 different base-stocks (poly-a-olefin, polypropylene glycol and unsaturated TMP ester) and these blended with 2 different additives (1wt% ZnDTP or 1wt% dibenzyl disulfide(DBDS)) were used as lubricants to evaluate the tribological properties of AA6061-T6 treated by means of plasma electrolytic oxidation in a SRV tribometer (Toi|=80 °C, Fn = 50N, v= 50 Hz, 2mm stroke, 2hrs). The base oils of PPG and the TMP-ester had better lubricities than the PAO with/without the additives. ZnDTP tend to reduce wear, but when added to PAO and PPG increased the friction. The unsaturated TMP-ester +1wt%DBDS showed 45% lower friction than PAO + ZnDTP (reference), whereas PPG + DBDS had 30% lower friction.