Tribology is the study of surfaces in moving contact, tribos means rubbing in Greek. Two contacting surfaces in relative motion generate friction, wear and can be mitigated by lubrication.
It is important to note that friction and wear are system properties and not material properties. They depend on the whole tribosystem :
Thus the tribological tests should be performed under a well controlled environment and the testing geometries should be as close as possible to the real applications.
Our current testing capabilities are summarized in the following tables related to the tribometers, the dynanometers, the rotary abrasion testers and the wear measurements.
Tribometers (COF, Torque)
Solvay Labs | Tribometer | Contact geometry | Test Features |
EMEA ADL (Bollate) | SRV III (Optimol) | ball on disk cylinder on disk disk on disk | Linear oscillation Load: 2 - 2000 (N) Frequency: 1-511 (Hz) Stroke: 0.2-4 (mm) Temperature: ambient to +290°C Test time: 1 minute to 999 hours |
EMEA ADL (Bollate) | MCTT (Falex) | Thrust Washer Pin on Disk Ball on Disk | Rotary oscillation Loads: 44-3560 N Contact pressure: 0.1 MPa to 10 GPa Temperature: ambient to 200°C Speeds:15-3600 rpm |
EMEA ADL (Bollate) | Four Ball Wear and EP Tester (Falex) | Ball on balls | Sliding or rolling motion Weight: 0 - 50 kg / 0 - 800 kg Temperature: ambient to 200°C Speeds:1-1800 rpm |
EMEA ADL (Bollate) | Torque tester (Scavini) | Ball bearing | Unidirectional Temperature: -20°C to -73°C Speed: 1 rpm |
APAC ADL (Fuji Lab) | Thrust washer tester | Thrust Washer | Unidirectional Ambient temperature Load: 0~100kgf 0~120 cm/sec |
Dynamometer (Static and Dynamic COF)
Solvay Labs | Dynanometer | Test Features |
EMEA ADL (Bollate) | LF Plus (DGTS Lloyd instruments) | room temperature speed 150 mm/minute total length 200 mm. |
US ADL (Alpharetta) |
Rotary abrasion tester (Wear)
Solvay Labs | Abrasion tester | Test Features |
EMEA ADL (Bollate) | Taber Linear Abrasion 5750 | Unidirectional Room temperature 2-75 cycle/min stroke 0.2"-4" 350-2100 grams |
PCL Alpharetta | Taber Linear Abrasion 5750 | Unidirectional Room temperature 2-75 cycle/min stroke 0.2"-4" 350-2100 grams |
China ADL (Shanghai) | Taber Linear Abrasion 5750 | Unidirectional Room temperature 2-75 cycle/min stroke 0.2"-4" 350-2100 grams |
ADL-Fuji Lab | Rotary Abrasion Tester | Unidirectional 60 rpm, 0.25 m/s Room Temperature up to 1 kg weight applied on each wheel |
Wear Measurements
Solvay Labs | Equipment | Test Features |
EMEA ADL (Bollate) | Digital Microscope (Motic) | Wear scar |
EMEA ADL (Bollate) | ZeGage™ Pro no-contact 3D Optical Profiler | Wear scar Wear volume |