Tribological model investigation to wear behaviour of material pairs in sealing contacts

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Michael Kopnarski; Professor Dr.-Ing. Bernd Sauer, since 9/2018
• Subject Area: Engineering Design, Machine Elements, Product Development
• Term: from 2016 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 321845695

Radial shaft seals are commonly used machine elements to avoid oil leakage of rotating shafts and entry of dirt in the housing. In the small contact area a complex mechanical, physical and chemical interaction exist between the seal, the shaft and the media to be sealed. Those mutually influence the frictional, thermal and wear behavior of the sealing system. Today high performance flouroelastomeric (FKM) seal rings and low viscosity polyalphaolefin (PAO) base oils are frequently used in the automobile applications due to the increasing demand for friction reduction. Specifically this commonly used material combination causes a macroscopic wear mark at many times. This is able to cause leakage, which means a failure of the sealing system. Therefore the aim of this proposed project is the identification of the morphological life-affecting influence parameters of the shaft and seal wear. In the next step those quantified parameters can be used as input for a simulation to determine the tribological load. From the results technological countermeasures for the reduction of wear are derived.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Professor Dr.-Ing. Balázs Magyar, until 8/2018