Friction and Wear in the Presence of Fullerene Contained Lubricants at Boundary Conditions

This work describes application of fullerenes as additives for liquid lubricants such as motor oils. Experiments include dynamic tracking of friction coefficient and weight measurements of samples before and after experiments. Friction coefficient measurements have been done on computer-controlled wear-friction testing machine, which has been developed at Surface Engineering Laboratory in NJIT. For the proposed series of experiments, this machine employs conforming disc-on-ring arrangement of rubbing bodies at boundary lubrication; sample couple is steel AISI 4340 and bronze SAE 40; nominal contact pressure ranges from 1.9 MPa to 3.7 MPa with sliding speed of 0.61 m/s. Tested lubricants were prepared on the basis of super duty motor oil SAE 10 by adding one weight percent of additives: pure C₆₀, mixture of C₆₀ and C₇₀ and graphite powder. Performance comparison of fullerene contained lubricants with pure oil and oil modified by graphite powder showed that although there is no any clear difference in friction coefficient value for tested lubricants, fullerene contained lubricants decrease wear rate of rubbing bodies.