A research paper on impact of wear and lubrication in cam/follower mechanism.

Rabin Shrestha, Rishi Raj Devkota, Sandeep Tripathi, Sarbin Shrestha, Shekhar Ghimire, Subodh Aryal, Suran Maharjan, Yogesh Bist

Department of industrial engineering, Institute of Engineering, Tribhuvan University Thapathali, Kathmandu

1. Abstract
The paper provides an analysis of the reasons for excessive wear of the cam/follower system components based on physical and mathematical models developed to describe the impact of selected material, technological and operational factors. The main reasons for excessive cam wear include inferior quality of the cam and follower frictional couple lubrication as well as edge-type cooperation between the cam and the cam follower. At the same time, a significant impact on the wear is exerted by hardness of the cam and its follower.

2. Introduction
A cam is a rotating machine element which gives reciprocating or oscillating motions to another element known as follower. The cam and the follower have a line contact and constitute a higher pair. Excessive wear of camshaft cams is a defect occurring in engines of various types of machines. It is also accompanied by accelerated wear of cam followers. Material properties are very important for camshaft cams structure. Excessive wear often occurs on only certain camshaft cams and their cooperating cam followers. It exerts a negative impact on the machine operations. Durability of the cam/follower frictional couple components may be conditional to their wear. It is defined as a process of gradual deterioration understood as the components losing their operational properties [1]. It is caused by input functions as well as physical and chemical factors affecting the components throughout their entire service life. To overcome this excessive wear, lubrication on cam shaft mechanism plays a vital role and increases the service life and the efficiency. Also in order to obtain the optimum service life and efficiency proper lubrication should be selected. The proper selection of lubrication will be based on material of cam and follower, hardness of the material, speed of cam shaft, etc.

3. Data and Methods

We collected data from different lab experiments done in various international universities laboratory. We reach to get this data from different literature, to know the wear that takes place in cam model and impact of lubrication on the cam model. In the course of the laboratory studies of abrasive wear, linear wear intensity of specimens made of cast iron was determined for different operating conditions and material hardness values.

The results obtained enable establishing the dependence between wear intensity and the factors altered while testing. Also the test under different coefficient of friction was taken as a source reference to show the relation between wear and frictional impact on mechanism. Two figures below suggest the wear intensity, pressure force and its hardness and dependence of wear on frictional coefficient.

Fig- 1: Dependence between a cams linear wear intensity and pressure force as well as its hardness on friction in presence of oil ( = 0.1)

Fig-2: Dependence of linear wear intensity of a cam of the hardness of 55 HRC on friction coefficient and pressure assuming the cam follower hardness of 59 HRC

Sample calculation results obtained by application of the cam wear model have been provided in Figures 1 and 2 [2]. The wear intensity calculated based on the model is then expressed in mm of linear wear for mm of friction distance, and hence relatively small values are assumed. The dependences obtained by application of the wear model imply that the factors the model takes into consideration exert impact on the wear of both specimens and cams in operation. The largest impact on wear intensity is exerted by the friction coefficient (Fig. 2). Therefore, it is probable that the reason for excessive wear of camshaft cams is poor lubrication causing the said coefficient to increase. Wear intensity also depends on pressure force (Figs. 1 and 2). Hence increased pressures between a cam and a cam follower due to edge-type cooperation between these components may also accelerate their wear. Consequently, the calculations based on the wear model enable assessment of the cam wear and the impact exerted by the individual factors on the possibility of its excessive wear. However, a prerequisite for those calculations to be conducted is knowing the cam and the cam follower operating conditions. For that purpose, a finite element based model of a cam/follower system was developed and subsequently used to establish the pressures occurring between these components. Lubricant Temperature -Viscosity Relationship [3]: To investigate the thermal effect on the tribological performance of the cam and follower it was necessary to known the temperature-viscosity characteristics of the lubricant. This was determined using a suspended level viscometer in which the time for a specified amount of lubricant to pass through a certain distance was checked. The kinematic viscosity was calculated by multiplying this time by the constant of the viscometer used for the test. The variation of the dynamic viscosities of the lubricant with temperature are shown in Figure (3). The solid line was an exponential curve fit to six data pairs measured at the temperatures of (30.0C), (50.0C), (72.5C), (90.5C), (105.0C) and (122.0C) respectively. The lubricant used in the present experimental study was TEXACO 10W/30.

Figure 3: Temperature-viscosity characteristics of the lubricant (TEXACO 10W/30).

4. Result and discussion

Observing the different relevant data we included in our research and analyzing them in group we get following findings: The hardness of the cam material and the operation life influences the wear intensity. Low hardness leads to increased wear intensity resulting low operational life. As coefficient of friction and pressure intensity applied in cam increases, wear intensity also increases. In lower temperature viscosity of lubricants are higher which gradually decreases as temperature goes on increasing, finally effect of lubrication goes down. Effective use of lubrication reduces the coefficient of friction on the mechanism and successively reduces the wear intensity.

5. Concluding remarks
Wear intensity and durability of cams are strongly dependent on the value of friction coefficient (lubrication). An increase of the friction coefficient from 0.1 (lubricated contact) to 0.5 (dry friction) reduces the cam durability. Also the contact width (edge-type cooperation between a cam and a cam follower) exerts a significant impact on durability of cams. Furthermore, the cam durability is considerably affected by the material the cam and the cam follower are made of. Raising the cam hardness from 50 to 55 HRC increases its durability (Fig. 1). A similar effect is observed when the cam follower hardness is reduced from 59 to 53 HRC. The main reason for excessive cam wear is inferior quality of the cam and follower frictional couple lubrication which manifests itself in an increase of the coefficient of friction between these components. At the same time, one can observe a considerable impact of the contact width as well as the hardness of cams and cam followers on their wear. In order to counteract the phenomenon of accelerated wear of cams, one should consider increasing the required hardness of their working surfaces.

6. References
[1] G. Siwiec, J. Botor, B. Machulec, The surface tension determination through the estimation of the parameters of the sessile drop equation, Archives of Metallurgy 48/2 (2003) 209-221. [2] International Scientific Journal published monthly by the World Academy of Materials and Manufacturing Engineering [3] A theoretical and experimental study of the tribology of a cam and follower by Guangrui Zhu M. Eng. May, 1988.