Sanjay

Mohan Sharma and Ankush Anand, Tribology in Industry Vol. xx, No. x (201x) x-x

2.4 Iron-Carbon-Copper/Nickel system (Fe-C- where L is the normal load, PH is the mean hertz
pressure,
Cu/Ni)
, which is a
The addition of nickel, carbon and, copper to
iron in amounts of 2-4 wt% , 0.4-0.8 wt% and, 2 the pressure dependence of the shear strength,
wt% respectively results in nickel steels [6]. which is the lowest possible friction coefficient
Addition of nickel to Fe-C enhances the for a given friction pair. According to Eq. 1, the
diffusivity of iron which leads to increase in friction coefficient is the ratio of frictional force
pearlite and decrease in ferrite contents. Nickel to the applied normal force or can be termed as
rich areas also form at certain places. Thus, the ratio of shear strength to pressure.
nickel steels show increased strength, ductility
and also possess high strength when subjected Any hard material with a soft skin provides low
to heat treatment.
increasing PH. The Bowden and Tabor concept is
schematically illustrated for the soft metal
3. SOLID LUBRICATION versus hard metal contacts as shown in Fig. 2.
The figure shows the behavior of friction force
Materials developed for friction and wear with metal substrate hardness. The shear
mitigation are commonly known as tribological strength and contact area changes with the
materials. These materials must primarily meet hardness and, for the substrate covered with
mechanical and physical properties such as thin film of some soft metal, friction is relatively
strength, stiffness, fatigue life, thermal less. They validated their model by
expansion and, damping, in addition to demonstrating that indium metal can act as a
tribological properties. Friction and wear
reduction is achieved by introducing a shear- much harder steel substrate as shown in Fig. 3. It
accommodating layer between the contacting also shows the dependency of friction on the
surfaces. The intricate regions where liquid applied load. Friction coefficient is independent
lubrication is not possible, such as high of load in case of unlubricated steel and steel
temperature applications, vacuum or in with oil whereas, same does not hold good for
conditions where liquids cannot be introduced, third curve, where friction coefficient decreased
solid lubricants is the most promising solution with the increase in load.
[9].
Solid lubrication was considered as an art only a
half century ago but now it has emerged as an
integral part of research discipline in the area of
materials science and engineering. The
functioning of solid lubricants on a surface is
similar as that of liquid lubricants. The former
shears easily and facilitates the tribological
behavior between the sliding surfaces.

3.1 Fundamentals of solid lubrication
The theory as given by Bowden and Tabor [10]
presented friction force (F) as a product of the
real contact area and the shear strength of the
lubricant material, A r
friction coefficient can be expressed as
F Ar
Fig. 2. Friction behaviour between Soft and hard
L L PH PH
metal [10]