Tribological behaviour of copper oxide nanoparticle suspension

This work presents and discusses the tribological behaviour of nanoparticle suspensions in a polyalphaolefin (PAO6). CuO nanoparticles were separately dispersed at 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0% wt. in PAO6 using an ultrasonic probe for 2 minutes. AW properties were obtained using a TE53SLIM tribometer with a block-on-ring configuration and EP properties were obtained using a Four-Ball machine according to ASTM D2783. Wear surfaces were analyzed by SEM and EDS after tests. The study led to the following conclusions: nanoparticle suspensions exhibited reductions in friction and wear compared to the base oil; CuO suspensions showed the highest friction coefficient and lowest wear per nanoparticle content of 2%; all concentrations of nanoparticles improved the EP properties of PAO6; CuO showed better results at 0.5% wt. of nanoparticles; and the antiwear mechanism of nanoparticulate additive was produced by tribo-sintering

Tribological behaviour of polyalphaolefins: wear and rolling contact fatigue tests

Polyalphaolefin fluids are gaining rapid acceptance as high-performance lubricants and functional fluids because they have certain inherent, and highly desirable, characteristics relative to mineral oils. One of these characteristics is their low toxicity. It combined with excellent viscometrics and lubricity, have made low-viscosity PAO fluids an important component in lubricant formulations. Typical data found in product specifications for lubricants are the kinematic viscosity and the viscosity index. These values do not give enough information to choose the optimum lubricant for a lubricated contact. In mechanical systems take place rolling, sliding and rolling/sliding contacts, therefore lubricants have to work the best possible in these operation conditions. In this study are experimentally determined the L50, L10 and Weibull´s slope () of polyalphaolefins with two different viscosities. This test was made on a four-ball machine (Stanhope Seta). Wear test also was made on a four-ball tester (Roxana) in order to measure the wear scar diameter (WSD), and the flash temperature parameter (FTP). Lubricants were identified through infrared spectroscopy, and ball´s pittings were observed with SEM

On the impact of early marriage on schooling outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa and South West Asia

This paper examines the effect of age of marriage on women's schooling outcomes for 36 countries from Sub-Saharan Africa and South West Asia. We employ an instrumental variable approach to account for the endogeneity of early marriage driven by socio-economic and cultural factors. Our results show that delaying early marriage by one year is associated with an increase of half a year of education in Sub-Saharan Africa and nearly one third of a year of education in South West Asia as well as a lower likelihood of dropping out from secondary school of 5.5% in South West Asia

Wear prevention characteristics of binary oil mixtures

This work presents the results of wear prevention tests carried out with mixtures of a polyalphaolefin (PAO 6) and two esters (TMP-05 and Sunflower oil, SO), on a four-ball machine tester. Results show that esters are excellent wear reducers when they are mixed with a low viscosity polyalphaolefin. The optimum ester percentages in PAO 6 were 5% and 15% for TMP-05 and SO, respectively. Better results than in pure PAO 6 occurred in all mixtures. The addition of esters (less than 15%) to PAO 6 hardly changed volume viscosity

Viscosity and tribology of copper oxide nanofluids

Nanofluids, a term proposed by Choi in 1995 [1], are composites consisting of solid nanoparticles with sizes varying generally from 1 to 100 nm dispersed in a liquid. Numerous nanoparticles used as oil additives have been investigated in recent years [2-7]. Results show that they deposit on the rubbing surface and improve the tribological properties of the base oil, displaying good friction and wear reduction characteristics even at concentrations below 2%wt. Although the viscosity of the nanofluids is a property of crucial importance for film forming, and hence friction and wear reduction, which are characteristic of lubricants, only Hwang et al. [8] have studied thermal characteristics, kinematic viscosity and tribological properties of nanofluids simultaneously. In this paper, we present measurements of dynamic viscosity of nanofluids formed by copper oxide nanoparticles dispersed in a polyalphaolefin, for temperatures and concentrations varying from 20 to 60ºC and 0.5 to 2% wt., respectively. Dependence of the nanofluid viscosity to the solid fraction and temperature was compared with existing models and its influence on lubrication was also analysed