Lubrication of engineering surfaces - II. Final Report.

The performance prediction for rolling/sliding contact has been considered in terms of the statistical microgeometry of the contacting bodies and the properties of the fluid medium. An asperity contact model was developed taking account of surface anisotropy. Guidelines are given for preprocessing roughness data and assessing the distortional effect of stylus radius and flight, record length, sampling rate and quantization error. Limitations of the model have been considered. Experimental validation has been performed on fluid/Coulomb model for predicting the traction transmitted in rolling/sliding contact when the lubricant film is thin enough to permit some degree of asperity contact. Lubricant and surface roughness data have been compiled to enable contact performance preidiction and also to quantify the statistical error. (H.C.B.)