Experimental Study and Analysis of Coefficient of Friction for Mild Steel Under Various Lubrication Conditions

Abstract

The coefficient of friction plays decisive role in the metal-forming processes. This study focuses on determination of the coefficient of friction between work piece and lubricants using ring compression test by experiments physical modeling and finite element (FE) simulation. A series of ring compression tests were carried out to obtain friction coefficients of mild steel under lubricants including boric acid, Vaseline, grease and dry conditions. According to Male and Cockcroft (1964), the standard geometry (6: 3 :2) was modeled with outer diameter 42 mm, inner diameter 21 mm and height 14 mm. Results show that the coefficient of friction obtained by experimental for dry condition was 0.38, for boric acid was 0.27, for vaseline was 0.22, and for grease was 0.15. The inside diameter of the ring reduces for dry condition, due to high friction and increases for remaining lubricants because of friction-less conditions. The simulation was conducted for the ring compression test using analysis FE software ANSYS. Ring compression test was carried out experimentally and the results were compared with the numerical results and validated. The total deformation and stress variation study is carried out for the inner radius and height of the ring specimen, and friction effect is defined by the deformation profile and stress variation analysis.