An Experimental Investigation of Tribological Performance of a Lubricant Using Different Nano Additives 2018-01-0833

A novel solution to anti wear-additives is to add relatively small amounts of effective Nano Additives to the main content of lubricants. Such supplement would offer an enhancement to their tribological and thermal properties as wear resistance and friction surface temperature.

In this work, different types of Nano additives are used to investigate their effect on the tribological properties of a certain lubricant (TOTAL FLUIDE AT42). Three main Nano additive materials were used with two different concentration for each; Gamma aluminum oxide (Alumina Al₂O₃), Copper Oxide (CuO) and one-dimensional carbon Nano tubes (CNT). A pin on disc equipment fitted out with circulated lubricant system was operated for 140 hours with normal lubricant, and for 140 hours for each case of the three Nano additives, with a total working time of 980 hours. Weight loss of the pin, friction surface temperature and friction force were measured every 20 working hours. Results showed that there is an improvement in lubricant properties especially in the case of Copper oxide Nano additives, which had decreased the average weight loss of the pin and friction force by 60.83% and 33.06% respectively. Also, a remarkable decrease in friction surface temperature was achieved for all cases of nano additives.