Wear Repairing Mechanism of Non-soap Base Attapulgite Grease (NBAG)

Some No.3 non-soap greases were prepared using sub-micron attapulgite powders as the thickenerwhich were modified by organic agent, and the gather alpha olefins synthetic base oil. The SRV-Ⅳ type friction and wear tester was used to carry on the friction and wear test,and scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectrometry and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were used to analyze the wear surface and cross-section morphology, element composition, distribution and valence, and the phase composition. Results show that the non-soap attapulgite grease form an uneven composite repairing layer which was composed of multi-elements (e.g. Mg,O,Fe,C,Si), multiple phase on the frictional surface. Finally, the repair layer formation mechanism was proposed.