Tribological Behavior of 42CrMo Steel Under Grease Lubrication with Ti3C2 as an Additive

To improve the tribo-performance of molybdenum disulphide lithium grease (MDLG), the tribological behaviors of 42CrMo under grease lubrication with Ti3C2 as an additive were systematically studied. The results show that when the concentration of MXenes-Ti3C2 in MDLG is 2 wt.%, the friction coefficient and wear volume loss could be respectively reduced by a maximum of 69 and 98%. This is mainly attributed to the graphitization of MXenes-Ti3C2 induced by the friction. It retards the breakage of soap fibers and in turn significantly improves the tribological performance of MDLG under the low speed and high load conditions. In order to predict better working conditions for obtaining the excellent tribological behavior, the experimental results were used to develop a Genetic Algorithm-Artificial Neural Network (GA-ANN) model. Under the predicted working conditions, the estimated friction coefficient (R-2 = 0.993) and wear volume loss (R-2 = 0.934) were close to the experimental results. This study could provide the support for the application of MXenes-Ti3C2 as an additive in the lubrication grease.