Understanding tribology

A KEY TO IMPROVED RELIABILITY

Machinery and mechanical equipment can break down for a large variety
of reasons, and frequently the tribological components, i.e. bearings,
gears, seals and couplings are the source of the problem.
The tribological components in a machine can be compared with the
fuses in electrical equipment; when anything goes wrong, they melt!
Unfortunately, unlike electrical fuses, the bearings and gears are not
quick and easy to repair, nor, by melting, do they necessarily protect the
rest of the machine. For example, a failed bearing can result in complete
destruction of a whole gearbox.
Continuing the analogy, merely replacing a fuse is not likely to cure an
electrical problem. Similarly, with tribological components, when they
fail it is tempting to merely repair or replace the component, but if the
underlying cause of the failure was not the component itself then the
problem is will recur.
The reason why tribological components tend to fail before other parts
of the machine can be readily understood by thinking about their
function. A bearing is required to carry a substantial load, while allowing
rotary motion with very low friction. Typical friction coefficients for
continuously rotating bearings are 0.01 or less. It does not require very
much to go wrong to cause this friction coefficient to rise by a factor of
10 or more. When this happens, there is suddenly a large amount of heat
generated in the bearing, leading to melting and possible ignition of
surrounding materials. The cause may be something quite small: dirt or
water in the oil; external shock loads and vibration; or thermal
distortions during warm-up, are just some possibilities.

This article uses examples relevant to the rail industry to illustrate the
advantages to be gained from a full investigation of machinery failures,
using tribological knowledge and understanding to establish the causes.
It is frequently possible to improve reliability substantially by quite
simple changes, once the real cause of the mechanism of the failure is
understood.
The following topics will be covered: bearings in gearboxes and motors;
axle bearings; and various engine components.
Gearboxes
On modern EMUs (electrical multiple units) high speed traction motors
are often used, resulting in gearbox input shaft speeds in excess of 6000
rpm. When bearings at these speeds fail, the resulting damage to the
whole gearbox tends to be so severe that it is often difficult to determine
the sequence of failure, and almost impossible to confirm the underlying
cause or triggering event.
Investigation of failures on various EMU traction gearboxes has
revealed various features, all of which contribute to unreliability.
The input shaft bearings, in common with all the gears and bearings are
usually splash lubricated. However, at maximum vehicle speed, the input
shaft bearings are often above the normally recommended speeds for
splash lubrication, so any deficiency in lubrication, or any deterioration
of the bearing caused by debris in the oil, can lead to excessive heat
generation and rapid failure.
Some types of EMU gearbox have a hollow input shaft, to allow the
input driveshaft to pass through. This results in relatively poor heat
dissipation from the shaft, and while not normally a problem, during
high speed running straight from a cold start, the hollow shaft may heat
up considerably faster than the casing, which can reduce or eliminate the
internal clearance in the bearing. Failures of this kind tend to happen

early in the life of the equipment, but can also happen later if the heat
generation within the bearing increases for any reason.
The gearbox output gear is usually press-fitted to the vehicle axle and, as
the wheels form part of the power circuit it is difficult to isolate the
gearbox completely from electrical currents. Any faults on axle earthing
brushes can Examples of tribological components include bearings,
gears, seals, piston rings, valves, wheels. Lead to occasional stray
currents passing through the gearbox, and the high speed input shaft
bearings are likely to be the most sensitive to electrical erosion damage.
A carefully designed earthing system does, however, almost eliminate
the risk of damage.
Mono-motor drive gears
Mono-motor drives are used on many light rail vehicles, where one
motor drives two axles via two bevel gearboxes. On one particular
design of vehicle, persistent failures of the bevel gear teeth were
occurring.
Investigation revealed that the reason was slight differences in wheel
diameter between the two axles. This meant that one axle wanted to
rotate faster than the other, but since they were connected by virtue of
being driven by the same motor, a locked-in torque several times greater
than the nominal motor torque was generated in the gear-boxes.
The wheels started out at the same diameter, but as wear occurred, the
diameters varied. Analysis of the friction forces showed that the wear
was unstable; whichever wheel set was the first to reduce in size then
slipped more and wore faster.
The only real solution was stronger gears, or a redesigned drive system
incorporating a differential. However, as the vehicles were being used in
a relatively flat city, a pragmatic solution of disconnecting one axle from
the drive was adopted. The traction and braking performance were still
adequate for the duty.

Axle bearings
Most modern rail vehicles now use roller bearings, which are extremely
reliable, as indeed they have to be to ensure safety. The speeds are low
compared to those of the gearbox input shafts described above, and so
rapid catastrophic seizure is a very rare event.
Roller bearings are expected to fail eventually by the mechanism of
fatigue pitting. Premature failure can occur, with a number of possible
causes. The appearance of the failure may well be that of fatigue pitting,
i.e. apparently identical to the appearance of a normal life-expired
bearing.
There are various causes for premature fatigue. A common one is water
contamination. The water has two effects; it causes corrosion of the
surfaces, and it also disrupts or degrades the mechanism of lubrication.
Rolling bearing lubrication is by elastohydrodynamic action (EHL or
EHD lubrication), and the presence of water tends to inhibit the
formation of the EHL film. Even 0.1% of water has a significant effect,
and 1% water can reduce bearing life by a factor of 10. Vehicle washing
procedures are thought to be a significant cause of water entering
bearings.
Poor lubrication, or wear particles in the grease or oil, can also cause
premature fatigue. If the bearing moves or creeps in its housing, the
resulting fretting debris may enter the bearing and cause damage.
Shock loadings, and electrical currents can also cause damage and
premature fatigue.
Traction motor bearings
Unlike gearbox bearings, traction motor bearings are usually grease
lubricated, to avoid the complication of an oil system, and to avoid any
risk of oil entering the motor.

Historically, grease lubrication has been used mainly for low speed
bearings, where it is entirely appropriate and reliable. For high speed
bearings, special greases have been developed to cope with the relatively
high temperatures and high degree of mechanical working. Greasing
instructions need to be carefully followed, and the bearing housing must
have appropriate arrangements to expel excess grease. If a high speed
bearing is over-packed with grease it will overheat.
Therefore, problems with traction motor bearings are quite likely to be
caused by accidental use of incorrect grease, or over-long greasing
intervals.
With traction motors there is clearly a risk of electrical current damage,
either due to electrical faults, or due to the dynamo effect of asymmetric
magnetization on rotating shafts. Usually at least one of the motor
bearings is of the insulated type to avoid this problem.

Engine components
A diesel engine contains a multitude of tribological components:
crankshaft bearings, pistons and cylinders, gears and chains, to name but
a few. In rail traction duty, the engine operating conditions are unusually
severe, in that the load frequently alternates between full power and idle.
Stationary applications and marine engines tend to have much more
steady loads, while road vehicles do not usually sustain full power for
more than short bursts.
Therefore, certain problems can occur in rail traction duty which may
not occur with the same engines in other applications. For example,
cracking due to excessive thermal cycling of hot components (such as
turbochargers, cylinder heads, exhaust manifolds).

If a diesel engine is correctly maintained, in particular changing the oil

and filters regularly, then most of the components are highly reliable,
suffering very little wear. The exception is the piston rings and cylinder
liner which are inherently poorly lubricated, particularly around the
piston top-dead-center (TDC) position. These components will
inevitably wear, and under certain circumstances the wear may be
unacceptably rapid.
On one engine design, which used chromium plated steel cylinder liners
for strength and wear resistance, unacceptable wear was traced to a
combination of design and manufacturing process problems. The
cylinder liners were honed to give an appropriate tribological surface
finish, but the subsequent cleaning process was not well controlled,
leaving substantial numbers of loose or almost-loose chromium
particles. The piston rings were copper-plated as a running-in aid (a
common feature), and the loose chromium particles embedded in the
copper this resulted in unacceptable wear to both rings and cylinders.
Once these aspects were changed, the life of the components increased
dramatically.
Bearings with oscillating movement
For bearings with continuous rotation, such as all the preceding
examples, rolling element bearings are generally used. At high rotational
speeds, such as engine bearings and turbocharger bearings, a better
solution is to use plain bearings fed with oil under pressure.
However, there are many bearings in railway applications such as bogie
pivots and various operating linkages and couplings, where the
movement is one of oscillation, usually at relatively low speeds. Since
the working components are generally made of steel a common solution
is to allow them to work against each other with grease lubrication.
However, similar materials are not really compatible in rubbing contact
because they tend to pick up and seize together and, in the case of
ferrous components, corrosion can also make matters worse. A better

solution is to use a non-ferrous bush component such as leaded bronze

which can give reduced wear, but still needs regular lubrication.
In recent years, a large number of non-metallic materials have become
available which give low wear rates in rubbing contact with steel. They
have the advantage of not requiring lubrication, but do require a noncorrodible hard mating surface, such as chromium plate or stainless
steel. They offer major improvements in reliability because the wear rate
is consistent and low, giving predictable wear lives with low friction.