TRIBOLOGY FOR BEARING

TRIBOLOGY FOR BEARING

ABSTRACT

The etymology of the word tribology is Greek. ‘Tribos’ is Greek for rubbing and hence tribology is the study of rubbing surfaces. Tribology is defined as “the science and technology of interacting surfaces in relative motion”. The term tribology focus on the friction, wear and lubrication of interacting surfaces in relative motion, was introduced by   PETER JOST. As the word tribology is relatively new its meaning is still unclear to a wider community and humorous comparison with tribes tend to persist as soon as the word “Tribology” is mentioned.  The transformation of existing tribological knowledge to industry is still problem.
   
One possible reason is the tribology deals with surface interactions in machine components, their understanding requires a knowledge of various disciplines including solid mechanics, lubrication engineering, thermodynamics, surface physics, surface chemistry, metallurgy and ceramics, material engineering, machine design, applied mathematics and reliability. A lubrication engineer may not know much about other area, like the bearing, gear and cam designs. Similarly metallurgists who have the knowledge of materials, surface properties, and experimental techniques may not know much about machine design.     

Tribology has two major short comings:-
1)  Almost everything in a product is defined during the design, and failure    diagnosticians can only change a little of the design after its delivery which may    turn out to be very costly
2)  Present requirements of high speed and high specific load machinery emphasizes on miniatured designs.