Enhancement of a Tribometer Device Dedicated to Quasi-Static Friction Conditions Under High Pressure

A new version of an original tribometer has been developed to measure friction coefficients under high pressures in quasi-static conditions. This study describes the design of the new tribometer device and aims to cancel any defects noted in the previous release. This configuration, combined with the improvement of the tribometer’s guidance stiffness, increases the sliding distance from 1 to 30 mm while keeping a normal pressure accuracy and creates possible pressure tests ranging from 500 to 2000 MPa. In order to validate the assembly and to simulate testing conditions in severe plastic deformation processes of metals, two tribo-pairs consisting of interstitial free steels and aluminum alloy (Al 1050) samples sliding on 45NiCrMo16 steel matrices were tested. New results on the friction coefficient evolution throughout a sliding length of 10 mm were noted and all tests revealed good reproducibility for the whole pressure range.