The Journal Bearing Test allows to test mater­i­als and coat­ings for use in plain bear­ings on space­crafts or for explor­a­tion (torque and life time).

Plain bear­ings are used for artic­u­la­tions or linear guid­ance systems dedic­ated to single shot or low life time require­ment. These include for example solar array panel artic­u­la­tions, radi­ator panel artic­u­la­tions, HDRM fold back artic­u­la­tions, explor­a­tion rovers artic­u­la­tions and linear guid­ances, land­ing point­ing system artic­u­la­tions. The plain bear­ing tribometer allows the meas­ure­ments of fric­tion and wear of a complete journal bear­ing for altern­ate rota­tions <180°C and small loads

Post-Analysis may cover meas­ure­ment of wear by profilo­metry, SEM, invest­ig­a­tion of surface struc­ture or mater­ial trans­fer by SEM/EDX.

The device is fully PC-controlled. To the control para­met­ers, e.g. slid­ing distance, motion profiles (uni, oscil­lat­ing, ..), can be selec­ted. On-line-data acquis­i­tion offers to post-process data, e.g. for auto­matic calcu­la­tion of torque in running-in- or steady state, as well as endur­ance of solid lubric­ant coatings.

Measurement of

• Torque / Friction force / coefficient
• Environmental Data

Optional (e.g. resid­ual gas, user defined)

Image of the Ultra High Vacuum Tribometer:
Internal View show­ing the Tribo-System with ball holder and disc

Test prin­ciple: Bush is radi­ally loaded against shaft

Different options are available:

1. Testing in controlled gas envir­on­ment: eg simu­lat­ing Martian atmo­sphere (6 mbar in CO2)
2. Contamination monit­or­ing: a mass spec­tro­meter may by used ot detect on-line contam­in­a­tion (e.g. outgass­ing of fluid lubric­ants or their cracks).

Specifications
Test	online meas­ure­ment of ·         Torque / Friction force / coefficient ·         Environmental Data ·         resid­ual gas analysis (mass spec­tro­meter of outgass­ing particles)
Temperature	from -100 up to + 300 °C, thermal cycles available
Loads	10 <> 250 N
Speed / Motion	Motion select­able from unidirec­tional to recip­roc­at­ing (angles from 5° to 360°) 0.00005 <> 0,262 m/s (0,1 to 500rpm)
Environments	Vacuum select­able downto 10-6mbar Air with controlled humidity Gases with control­lable pres­sure (e.g CO2 at 6mbar)
Samples	Bush on shaft
Accuracy	Friction force ± 0.01 N Sample temper­at­ure (pin and disc separ­ately): ±2°C Linear Wear: 0 <> 2mm, ± 0.002 micrometer

Further AAC-devices enabling compon­ent test­ing under vacuum:

SALOTTE1: gear testing
BBT: ball bear­ing testing

Specimen: