Abstract
Morphological analysis of wear particles in the lubricating oil is a very effective and versatile means of lubricant analysis for machine condition monitoring and fault diagnosis. The prospects for determining quantitative information about wear particle morphology have been considerably enhanced by recent developments reported in the application of image processing and analysis techniques. This study was undertaken to investigate the influence of oiliness agent and extreme pressure agent on the shape of wear particles. The wear test was performed under different experimental conditions with stearic acid, dibenzyl disulfide(DBDS) and tricresol phosphate(TCP) in paraffinic base oil. Wear particles characteristics were described using four shape parameters, namely 50% volumetric diameter, aspect, roundness and reflectivity. The results showed that the four shape parameters of wear particles depend on a kind of the additives. This analysis of wear debris with computer image processing techniques is sufficient to distinguish some types of wear debris. The wear volume of three kinds of the specimens are affected by the additives with boundary films.
