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Thermohydrodynamics of lubricant flow with carbon nanoparticles in tribological contacts

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posted on 2017-01-26, 09:14 authored by Hamed Shahmohamadi, Ramin RahmaniRamin Rahmani, Homer Rahnejat, Colin GarnerColin Garner, Nikolaos Balodimos
This paper deals with the tribological performance of carbon nanoparticles dispersed in polyalphaolefin PAO6 oil. Stribeck curves are obtained under various operating conditions, using a fully instrumented pin-on-disc tribometer under controlled conditions. A detailed multi-physics thermal fluid flow model with Lagrangian low concentration discrete solid phase and Eulerian multi-phase fluid with cavitation represented by modified Rayleigh-Plesset and vapour transport equation is presented. The numerical predictions under identical conditions to the experiments show good conformance with the measurements, and provide a fundamental understanding of the role of nanoparticles. Results show improved heat transfer from the contact with the presence of nanoparticles even at low levels of concentration. The analysis shows that this leads to higher lubricant viscosity, load carrying capacity and reduced friction. Furthermore, a resulting small region of cavitation at low volume fraction does not unduly affect the enhanced heat transfer of nanoparticles. This combined experimentation and detailed numerical analysis has not hitherto been reported in literature.

Funding

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of Lloyds Register Foundation (LRF) to the International Cavitation Research Institute, under whose auspices the current research is carried out. The financial support of the Innovate UK in the use of nanoparticles is also acknowledged.

History

School

  • Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering

Published in

Tribology International

Volume

113

Pages

50 - 57

Citation

SHAHMOHAMADI, H. ... et al, 2016. Thermohydrodynamics of lubricant flow with carbon nanoparticles in tribological contacts. Tribology International, 113, pp. 50-57.

Publisher

© Elsevier

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2016-12-28

Publication date

2016-12-29

Notes

This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Tribology International and the definitive published version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.triboint.2016.12.048

ISSN

0301-679X

Language

  • en