Comparative Study to the Tribological Characteristics of Graphite Nano Lubricants after Thermal Degradation

Many researchers have tried to improve the tribological characteristics of lubricant by adding various nano particles in the base lubricant. But the reliability evaluation of the lubricants are rarely performed in its real operation condition. In this study, the physical property and the tribological characteristics of the graphite nano lubricant were evaluated and compared with raw lubricant after thermal degrading. In order to evaluate the tirbological characteristics, the disk-on-disk tribotester was adopted to measure the friction coefficient of the graphite nano lubricants. Also the temperature variations of friction surfaces were measured by the thermocouple installed on the fixed plate in the test chamber of the tribotester. The kinematic viscosity was measured using a capillary viscometer on the temperatures of 40, 60 and . The results showed that the graphite nano lubricant had lower friction coefficient and less wear on the friction surfaces than raw lubricant. After thermally degrading, the friction coefficients of graphite nano lubricant increased, but the friction coefficients after thermal degradation were still maintained lower than those of raw lubricant.