Experimental tribological analysis of the Swiss lever escapement

2017 
Abstract 95% of existing mechanical watch movements use the Swiss lever escapement. Little is known about the contact between the anchor and the escape wheel, which combines impact and sliding and occurs roughly 500,000 times within only 24 h. It can be considered as a mechanical exploit and a result of the behaviour of the third body, which plays a decisive role in the operation's success and, ultimately, in the precision of a mechanical watch. To obtain better understanding of this contact, an analysis based on high-speed camera observations on “new” and “aged” mechanical watch movements, coupled with observations of components at various stages of wear is proposed. The influence of the power reserve on the dynamics of the escapement and the difference of speed profiles between the input and the output pallet are shown, and the reconstruction of the contact's life through the evaluation of 1st and 3rd body flows by electron microscopy observations is proposed.
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