ENERGY AND WEAR ANALYSIS IN LUBRICATED SLIDING CONTACT

Lubricants are used to control friction and minimize wear in a variety of tribological applications. When lubricants are used at the contact interface of two sliding surfaces the material loss due to wear and t he energy consumption due to friction are reduced by several orders of magnitude. In railroad applications, lubricants are routinely applied to the side of the rails to reduce friction and wear that occur betwe en the flange part of the wheel and the gauge side of the rail on curv ed tracks. A standardized method has been developed to measure the rai lroad gauge side lubricant performance (A. Alp, Energy and wear analys is in lubricated sliding and rolling/sliding contacts, M.S. Thesis, Il linois Institute of Technology, August 1991). This method correlates t he amount of energy saved up to lubricant breakdown and stabilization points and lubricant breakdown duration to lubricant performance.