Effectiveness of greases to prevent fretting wear of thrust ball bearings according to ASTM D4170 standard

This paper focuses on the performance evaluation of three greases for mechanical transmissions using a fretting tribometer under boundary lubrication conditions. A procedure built at Cetim allowed to contribute to the understanding of their ability to protect materials against fretting. In addition to the requirements of ASTM D4170 (loss mass measurement), the thrust ball bearings races were analyzed to assess the load distribution depending on their angular and lower or upper position in the column. After only 5 h, with a load of 2450 N and a frequency of 30 Hz at room temperature, a significant difference in tribological behavior between these greases is reported. The lowest mass loss was obtained with the grease used in the food industry. The thrust ball bearing in the lower position is more worn than the one at the top of the column. •Fretting wear.•ASTM D4170.•Thrust ball bearing.•Grease.