Abstract
The surfaces of machine components in sliding contact such as bearing, gears and pistons etc. frequently operate under the condition of mixed lubrication due to high load, high speed and slip. These machine components often undergo the inception of scuffing in practical application. The scuffing failure is a critical problem in modern machine components, especially for the requirement of high efficiency and small size. However, it is difficult to find a universal mechanism to explain all scuffing phenomena because there are so many factors affecting the onset of scuffing. In this study, scuffing experiments are conducted using Acoustic Emission(AE) measurement by an indirect sensing approach to detect scuffing failure. Acoustic Emission(AE) signal has been widely utilized to monitor the interaction at the friction interface. Using AE signals we can get an indication about the state of the friction processes, about the quality of solid and liquid layers on the contacting surfaces in real time. The FFT(Fast Fourier Transform) analyses of the AE signal are sued to understand the interfacial interaction and the relationship between the AE signal and the state of contact is presented.