Abstract
The frictional performance of materials used in face seals is critical to the sealing performance. Silicon carbide is commonly used in hard rings because of its abrasion resistance, corrosion resistance, and thermal shock resistance. In this study, the frictional performance of silicon carbide, including graphite-added silicon carbide, under water and lubrication-absent conditions was studied by using a Falex-1506 tribotester and different working parameters. In addition, the morphology of the worn surfaces was observed using scanning electron microscopy and the damage was characterized to understand the tribological behavior of different silicon carbides. The results suggest that the friction coefficients decrease with increasing pressure under water lubrication conditions because of the water within the holes on the surface of the materials. The percentage of water lubrication increases, whereas the percentage of solid friction decreases when the pressure increases. Under dry contact conditions, the friction coefficients change negligibly with increasing pressure and graphite-added silicon carbide shows better frictional performance.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Lebeck A O. Principles and Design of Mechanical Face Seals. New York: Wiley, 1991.
Divakar R. Sintered silicon carbides with controlled porosity for mechanical face seal applications. Lubr Eng50(1): 75–80 (1994)
Liu X, Wang L, Lu Z, Xue Q J. Vacuum tribological performance of DLC-based solid-liquid lubricating coatings: Influence of sliding mating materials. Wear292: 124–134 (2012)
Wang Y, Wang L, Xue Q. Improvement in the tribological performances of Si3N4, SiC and WC by graphite-like carbon films under dry and water-lubricated sliding conditions. Surf Coat Tech205(8–9): 2770–2777 (2011)
Matsuda M, Kato K, Hashimoto A. Friction and wear properties of silicon carbide in water from different sources. Triboly Lett43(1): 33–41 (2011)
Presser V, Krummhauer O, Nickel K G, Kailer A, Berthold C, Raisch C. Tribological and hydrothermal behaviour of silicon carbide under water lubrication. Wear266(7–8): 771–781 (2009)
Gu Y Q. Practical Technology of Mechanical Seals. Beijing: Machine Industry Press, 2001.
Jones G A. On the tribological behavior of mechanical seal face materials in dry line contact Part I. mechanical carbon. Wear256: 415–432 (2004)
Jones G A. On the tribological behavior of mechanical seal face materials in dry line contact Part II. bulk ceramics, diamond and diamond-like carbon films. Wear256: 433–455 (2004)
Wen S Z, Huang P. Principles of Tribology. Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2008
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
A preliminary version of this work was presented at the 3rd International Symposium on Tribology of IFToMM, Luleå, Sweden, 2013.
Xingyu ZHAO. She received her Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2011 from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. Now, she is a master student in Department of Mechanical Engineering at the same university. Her research interest is in mechanical seals.
Ying LIU. She received her Doctor’s degree of Engineering in 2003 from Tsinghua University. Now she is an associate professor of Department of Mechanical Engineering in Tsinghua University. Her academic interest is in Machine Design, tribology and Mechanical seal.
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
About this article
Cite this article
Zhao, X., Liu, Y., Wen, Q. et al. Frictional performance of silicon carbide under different lubrication conditions. Friction 2, 58–63 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-014-0039-1
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-014-0039-1