Sliding contact bearings

For sliding contact bearings (sleeve or thrust bearings) the temperature readings mtisl be taken from as near to the bearing stirface as possible. 

Bearing metals, used as the bearing surfaces of sliding-contact bearings, are usually alloys of tin, lead, antimony, and copper. They contain small, hard crystals of a compound such as SnSb embedded in a soft matrix of tin or lead. The good bearing properties result from orientation of the hard crystals to present flat faces at the bearing surface. 

Maximum load or pressure which can be sustained by the capacity of lubricant (when used in a given lubricant system under specific lubricant conditions) without failure of moving bearings or sliding contact surfaces as evidenced by seizure or welding. 

ANL applied a NFC to the bearing shaft, which was tested with uncoated steel bushings. It was found that the bearing floated the 1 kg rotor at just over 900 RPM with about 1 m of sliding contact and a rubbing speed of about 1 m/s. One NFC trial coating reached 5,800 cycles, and another reached 10,200 start-stop cycles. 

Poggie, R.A., Wert, J.J., Mishra, A.K. and Davidson, J.A. (1992) Friction and wear characterization of UHMWPE in reciprocating sliding contact with Co-Cr, Ti-6A1-4V, and Zirconia implant bearing surfaces in wear and friction of elastomers. ASTM STP 1145. R. Denton and M.K. Keshavan, Eds., American Society For Testing and Materials, Philadelphia, pp. 65-81. 

One very important alloy for machine hearings is Babbitt metal, invented by the American Isaac Babbitt (1799-1862). In present-day usage the term is applied to a whole class of silver-white bearing metals or white metals . They are composed primarily of tin, antimony and copper, such as for instance 90% Sn, 6% Sb and 3% Cu. This alloy is used in situations with sliding contact under pressure. Its bearing properties are favored by the fact that hard components of the type CuSn and SbSn are formed and embedded in the soft tin matrix. 

Bearing alloys have to withstand sliding contacts under pressure. Three lead-tin bronzes are used for this purpose ... 

Investigation of Wear and Friction Properties Under Sliding Conditions of Some Materials, Suitable for Cages of Rolling-Contact Bearings, RX. Johnson, MA. Swikert, and E.E. Bisson, NACA Report 1062,1952. 

Lubricated Si N balls were loaded against various bearing steels under pure sliding contacts on a Pin-on-Disc (PoD) wear test rig. The performance of the various SijN balls on steel contacts was compared to the baseline case of M50 bearing steel sliding against itself. 

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