The wear behaviour investigation of sliding bearings with a designed testing machine

In this study, firstly a new wear testing machine was designed and produced in the university in order to investigate the wear behaviour of conventionally used sliding bearing alloys. Secondly, the wear tests of these bearings were performed by using this new machine. Three types of specimens' wear behaviours were tested in this constructed machine. These were tin bronzes called RB-1 and RB-7 and tin-based lead bronze called RB-4. The wear tests were performed under 10, 20 and 40 N loads with 0.5 m/s sliding speed by using ring shaped specimens. During the experiments, these specimens are put in their location in the test machine and tightened and then vertically loaded against the mile located at the center of the motor. When the experiment was started the mile turns and a force occurs to put up with the friction occurred between mile and ring interface. This force creates a moment along the mile axis and tries to turn the specimen. As a result, a deflection was observed in a plate located on the top of the machine and it is recorded by means of a transducer as a voltage (V). These data were recorded in every 10 s and stored in a data acquisition card inside the computer. The experiments were conducted for 2 h. Having finished the tests, the weight losses of the specimens were measured, the coefficient of friction values were calculated, optical and SEM investigations were performed and finally the wear behaviour of conventionally used sliding bearing alloys was characterized. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.