EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP AND PRELIMINARY RESULTS UPON A NEW TECHNIQUE TO MEASURE CONTACT PRESSURE

Cornel SUCIU

suciu@fim.usv.ro

Emanuel DIACONESCU

emdi@fim.usv.ro

Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Suceava, Romania

Abstract. Diaconescu, Glovnea and Petrosel [1] proposed a new technique to measure the pressure in real contacts. One of contacting surfaces is covered, prior to contact establishment, by a special gel. The contact closing removes the excess gel and, during a certain time interval, the contact pressure transforms the entrapped substance in an amorphous solid. In each point, the refractive index of this solid depends on the pressure acting during transformation. After contact opening, the reflectivity of this coating depends on the former contact pressure. Mapped by aid of a laser profilometer, it becomes an indicator of contact pressure.
The existing device used to load the contacts has a series of shortcomings. This paper proposes a new experimental set-up that can be used to load contacts with gel at the interface, and illustrates a few experimental results.
 

Keywords: contact pressure, refractive index, reflectivity, experimental set-up

References

1. Diaconescu, E. N., Glovnea, M. L., Petroşel, O., 2003, “A New Experimental Technique to Measure Contact Pressure,” Proc. of 2003 STLE/ASME Joint International Tribology Conference, Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida USA.

2. Diaconescu, E.N., and Glovnea, M.L., 2002, “Evaluation of Contact Area by Reflectivity,” Proc. of 3rd AIMETA International Tribology Conference, Italy, on CD.

3. Glovnea, M.L., and Diaconescu, E.N., 1994, “A New Method for Experimental Investigation of Elastic Contacts,” (in Romanian), Symp. on Tradition and Continuity in Railway Research, Vol.II, Bucharest, pp. 77-82.

4. Diaconescu, E.N., 1998, “A New Tool for Experimental Investigation of Mechanical Contacts, Part I: Principles of Investigation Method”, VAREHD 9, Suceava, pp. 255-260.

5. Diaconescu, E.N. and Glovnea, M.L., 1998, “A New Tool for Experimental Investigation of Mechanical Contacts, Part II: Experimental Set-up and Preliminary Results”, VAREHD 9, Suceava, pp. 261-266.

6. Diaconescu, E.N. and Glovnea, M.L., 2000, “Validation of Reflectivity as an Experimental Tool in Contact Mechanics”, VAREHD 10, Suceava, pp. 471 – 476.

7. Diaconescu, E.N. and Glovnea, M.L., 2006, “Visualization and Measurement of Contact Area by Reflectivity,” Transactions of the ASME, Journal of Tribology, Vol. 128, October 2006, 915 – 917.

8. Yamaguchi, K., Uchida, M., and Abraha, P., 1990, “Measurement of Pressure on Contact Surface by Reflection of Light (Effect of Surface Etching),” Proceedings of the Japan International Tribology Conference, Nagoya, pp. 1271-1276.

9. Yamaguchi, K., Uchida, M., and Abraha, P., 1997, “Measurement of the Pressure Distribution on Contact Surfaces by the Detection of a Transferred Oil Film”, Surface Science 377–379 (1997) 1015–1018.