The Influence of the Relative Sliding on the Surface Quality

Abstract

This paper presents a study on the surface quality pointing out the influence of relative sliding on the topography parameters. Traditional roughness parameters as Ra and Rq, deal only with relative high of the asperities to the mean line and they give no information on shape, slope and asperities magnitude, on their appearance frequency on the profile length. The authors analysed a set of 3D parameters including the amplitude ones (Sa, Sku, Ssk and St) and functional parameters as Svk, Sk and Spk as calculated with a dedicated soft from the bearing area. Tests were done on roller-roller tribotester lubricated with the grease grade UM185Li2EP (general purpose grease for rolling bearings), the temperature of the environment being kept at 80°C. There was studied the influence of relative sliding speed on the skewness and the kurtosis of the surface topography, but also on common parameters as Sa and St. Such a study may be used for selecting a suitable surface quality and to evaluate the surface topography degradation in time, after tests under severe conditions, very close to the actual ones.

Keywords

• roller-roller tribotester
• relative sliding
• profilometry
• functional 3D parameters