RESISTANCE-TO-WEAR TESTING OF METALLIC MACHINE COMPONENTS BY CHARGED-PARTICLE SURFACE ACTIVATION

Surface activation, commonly known as Thin Layer Activation (TLA), is an ion beam technique generally employed for wear and/or corrosion mon itoring in industrial plants, especially related to applications in en gine and machine construction industries. For an efficient industrial application of this technique, one must foresee some specific irradiat ion set-ups as well as the measuring method, having in mind the divers ity of machine component which might be subjects of such studies and t he tribological phenomena involved. Some of these aspects are mentione d the paper. In principle, the TLA-based measuring methods exploit the correlation between the loss of material owing to wear and the result ing changes in radioactivity. Two such measuring methods are derived; they will be reviewed briefly in the paper and illustrated by wear dia grams obtained for several parts of running machines such as piston-ri ngs, linear cylinders and bearing crankshafts, together with a study o f characteristics of different (unspecified) lubricant oils. An exampl e where a TLA-based method has been successfully applied, for material couple characterisation on Timken testing stands, is also presented. The paper ends with a typical remnant measuring method application exe cuted for the Romanian Railway Company. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Sc ience Ltd