Abstract:
Nowadays, wear is the leading cause of common machine failure and significant use of lubricants is
required to reduce such failure. Lubricants over the years have evolved from animal fats to mineral oils
and now nanofluids. Nanofluids are the blend of nanoparticles and base lubricating oil. Copper nanofluids
are used as efficient nanolubricants for contacting surfaces because of their high thermal and electrical
conductivity. In this paper, influences of applied load and rotational speed on tribological performance
of copper nanofluids have been investigated. The effect of viscoelasticity in terms of contact pressure
and film thickness in elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) has been also investigated. Experimental
tests were performed on multispecimen tribometer machine in pin on roller (line contact) arrangement,
using EN31-EN31, EN31-GM, EN31-PB, EN31-Al alloy as tribopairs. Results indicate that both contact
pressure and film thickness do not have any significant effect after incorporation of viscoelastic effect
in EHL line contacts of copper nanofluids. Coefficient of friction (CoF) for all the tribopairs have been
increased with the applied load, with rotational speed for EN31-GM, EN31- Al alloy. However, for
EN31-EN31, EN31-PB CoF decreases. Wear has been also shown to be increase with the increase of
applied load and rotational speed
