Effects of pore size on the lubrication properties of porous polyimide retainer material

Friction

Research Article

Wenzhong Wang¹  Pengzhe Zhu¹  Wenbin Chen¹  Xiangyu Ge¹ 

[1] School of Mechanical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, 100081, Beijing, China;

关键词: porous polyimide (PI) material;    oil-impregnated material;    lubrication property;    pore size;   

DOI  :  10.1007/s40544-022-0670-1

 received in 2022-04-07, accepted in 2022-06-23,  发布年份 2022

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

An oil-impregnated porous polyimide (PI) retainer is used in space rolling bearings to improve the lubrication performance, which depends on the release of lubricant from the pores, and therefore is closely related to the pore size. To study the effect of pore size, in this work, PI materials with different pore sizes were prepared by preheating the retainer tube billet during the limit pressing process, and then the friction tests were conducted with the ball-on-ring mode. The results show that the applied load deforms the pores, allowing the lubricant to be squeezed out from the pore; the centrifugal effect induced by rotation also makes the lubricant migrate out of the pore. Therefore, for the same pore sizes, the friction coefficients decrease with the increasing loads and rotation speeds. In addition, it was found that there exists an optimal pore size for the best lubrication properties of porous PI material. Furthermore, the optimal pore size should be larger for lubricants with high viscosity. The microscopic mechanism for lubricant outflow from pores is clarified by molecular dynamic simulations. The insights gained in this study can guide the preparation of oil-impregnated porous retainers under different working conditions.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The author(s) 2022

【 图 表 】

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Fig. 13