Modeling and experimental investigations on the relationship between wear debris concentration and wear rate in lubrication systems

The aim of this work is to map the wear debris concentration with wear rate. A wear debris attenuation function is proposed to depict quantitatively the removal of wear debris. The total residual mass of wear debris in lubrication systems can be stated as the convolution of the wear rate and the wear debris attenuation function. Additionally, the dynamic responses of the wear debris concentration under different wear rate excitations are also presented. To simulate and verify how the debris concentration changes, an oil lubrication system test rig is built, and on-line visual ferrograph (OLVF) is used to monitor the debris concentration. Two experimental results indicate that the variation of the wear debris concentration is consistent with the model result. •A mathematical model is developed to map wear debris concentration with wear rate.•A wear debris attenuation function is proposed to depict the wear debris removal.•The dynamic responses of wear debris concentration are presented.•The study provides a new approach to explain the on-line wear debris concentration.