Analysis of the line contact tribo-lubrication pair and failure mechanism under the extreme conditions

Theoretical analyses can be performed on elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) and mixed lubrication (ML), but not for the boundary due to the complicated contact conditions of the friction pair. More importantly, it is difficult to monitor the operating parameters of a line-contact friction pair. Thus, the extreme condition point of the line-contact cannot be determined in the BL. To address this issue, the temperature during the line-contact friction is adopted as a measure to analyze the extreme condition point of the line-contact. The extreme condition is recognized in the experiments, while the friction failure mechanism is analyzed by the temperature. The analysis results demonstrate that the temperature in extreme conditions is higher than the flash point temperature; the extreme condition point falls into the BL range, but its Schipper lubrication number falls into the ML region. As a result, the extreme condition point can be determined by experimental or field testing.