Test Industry: the role of tribology in sustainability

During the IFPE in Las Vegas, Test Industry America’s Ceo Chris Jorge held a press conference with Lizhi Shang, Professor at the Purdue University, regarding sustainability in hydraulics and the role of tribology in test chamber for fluid power applications.

As the global interest in developing sustainable and environmentally friendly technologies continues to rise advances made in tribology have significantly improved the environmental impact of numerous components in many industries around the world. 

To further analyze such effects Test Industry in collaboration with Purdue University’s researches developed the “General purpose in-situ tribology test chamber for fluid power applications”.

Test Industry is an Italian leading company in the design and construction of industrial test benches. The Test Industry Group brings together four important international brands, Bimal, Leonardo (Italy) TestingService and GiM (Germany), specialized in the design and construction of testing machines for production line and laboratory in many industries like hydraulics, automotive, aerospace, tires & wheels. 

Tribological interfaces significantly influence the hydrostatic pumps and motors’ energy efficiency and reliability. Those interfaces normally function as a seal and a bearing simultaneously. 

The performance of the tribological interfaces highly depends on their designs – clearance, roughness, material, surface finishing, etc. as well as the operating conditions – speed, load, temperature, fluid properties, etc. The experimental investigation of such interfaces with various designs at different conditions is critical to help the pump/motor designers to meet the growing requirement of hydrostatic machine efficiency. Such investigation is also essential to expand the speed and pressure range of an existing unit. 

This test stand is designed to measure the friction, leakage, pressure/temperature distribution, and loading capability of hydrostatic machine tribological interfaces. 

The test rig is designed to be flexible and can test different machines and different interfaces. The first measurement will be conducted on a piston pump to investigate the friction and leakage from each of its interfaces – piston/cylinder, block/valve plate, and slipper/swashplate separately at various operating conditions, including the speed at around zero rpm. The presentation will also highlight the general capability of the test rig and the possibility of investigating different types of machines and interfaces.