New materials in sliding bearings

Sammanfattning: Increasing demands for lower emissions from heavy trucks and buses creates new demands on the components in the engine. One such component is the journal bearing which is used at many positions in the engine. Implementing a start-stop system in a truck engine leads to that the crankshaft journal bearing gets worn out too quickly. A journal bearing is a sliding bearing with a constant flow of oil. When the journal starts rotating an oil film is formed between the bearing and the journal, separating the journal from the bearing surface when the rotational speed is high enough. When this happens a hydrodynamic oil film is formed. During start and stop the bearing and journal passes through boundary and mixed lubrication regimes. The increase in starts and stops leads to a vast increase in the time that the bearing is experiencing boundary and mixed lubrication. During these regimes the journal comes in contact with the bearing surface and eventually leads to wear. This thesis has compared two new materials provided by Höganäs AB with an existing bearing as a reference material. The new materials were laser cladded onto bearing shells and sent to Scania for grinding and testing. The thought was to use a start-stop test rig at KTH that simulates start-stop cycles. The reference bearings were first run in the test rig, but when the shells with the new materials arrived it turned out that they would not fit in the test rig. This created the need for a new test method on a short notice and a reciprocating tribometer at Scania was chosen. The tribometer underwent a number of modifications to be able to fit the samples. Five tests with each new material and the reference material were carried out. The tests ran for 60 minutes except for a long term test that ran for 600 minutes. The results showed that the material designated “S”, which had a solid lubricant, had a coefficient of friction similar to the reference material, but produced less wear and could handle a higher load. The thesis has also proved that the start-stop test rig at KTH works well and can deliver reliable results.