Estimation of coefficient of friction for a mechanical system with combined rolling-sliding contact using vibration measurements

A new dynamic experiment is proposed to estimate the coefficient of friction for a mechanical system with a combined rolling-sliding contact under a mixed lubrication regime. The experiment is designed and instrumented based on an analogous contact mechanics model, taking into consideration the constraints to ensure no impact and no sliding velocity reversal. The system consists of a cam (rotating with a constant speed) having a point contact with a follower that oscillates about a frictionless pivot, while maintaining contact with the cam with the help of a well-designed translational spring. The viscous damping elements for contact are identified for two different lubricants from an impulse test using the half-power bandwidth method. Dynamic responses (with the cam providing an input to the system) are measured in terms of the follower acceleration and the reaction forces at the follower pivot. A frequency domain based signal processing technique is proposed to estimate the coefficient of friction using the complex-valued Fourier amplitudes of the measured forces and acceleration. The coefficient of friction is estimated for the mechanical system with different surface roughnesses using two lubricants; these are also compared with similar values for both dry and lubricated cases as reported in the literature. An empirical relationship for the coefficient of friction is suggested based on a prior model under a mixed lubrication regime. Possible sources of errors in the estimation procedure are identified and quantified.