Influence of Oil - Air Lubrication Flow Behavior on Frictional Characteristics of Point Contact

Oil-air lubrication technology has been widely used in conventional component lubrication design. By formulating the lubrication process plan properly, the friction between the contact pairs can be effectively reduced to achieve the best lubrication state.The 45 steel disk and GCr15 ball were used as friction pair materials to carry out point contact oil-air lubrication experiment on an MFT-3000 friction and wear tester. In addition, the influence of lubrication parameters (e.g. injection orientation, oil supply and air supply speed) on the frictional characteristics of point contact was investigated by numerical simulation of oil-air lubrication field. The results show that under the reasonable injection orientation, the distribution of oil phase in the point contact area was more uniform and beneficial for the compressed air to spray the lubricating oil to the surface of the friction pair by the form of micro oil droplets. After collision, adhesion and spreading with the surface of friction pair, the oil film layer formed so that it can reduce the friction coefficient and improve the lubrication performance. The influence of oil supply and air supply rate on the oil phase distribution in the space flow field was obvious. Within a certain range, the increase in oil supply and the appropriate air supply speed improved the oil-air lubrication effect.