Design and development of a new portable test setup to study friction and wear

Abstract

In this paper, a novel portable sliding friction and wear test rig is introduced. Unlike other laboratory-based test setups, this setup can be used for both indoor and outdoor experiments. There is also no limitation on the size and type of the substrate surface that can be used for the friction and wear test in contrast to typical test rigs, which have some limitations for the size and type of substrate surface. A small six-wheel ground robot is developed to drag the sample on an arbitrary surface for a desired distance and velocity. A ground robot is an unmanned ground vehicle, capable of driving on the ground without humans on board. The speed of this robot can be measured and controlled precisely. The nominal normal load is adjusted using dead weights placed on the sample holder and the friction force is measured using a load cell. An adjustable sample holder was also designed and built to hold different-size specimens. The results of styrene–butadiene rubber block sliding on an asphalt track are presented to validate the test setup and illustrate the potential of the system for friction and wear testing. In addition, the effect of sliding velocity on the friction and wear is studied, and the correlation between the wear rate and the friction coefficient is investigated. These experimental results can be used to estimate the friction and life span of a tire tread compound on the real asphalt road. Finally, the formation of abrasion pattern observed on the rubber surface sliding on an asphalt track is discussed, which provides an insight into the understanding of dominant wear mechanism of tire tread compound on typical asphalt surfaces.

Asperity-based modification on theory of contact mechanics and rubber friction for self-affine fractal surfaces

“…This friction model, without the correction parameter ( ) S q , is used along with the asperity-based correction factor proposed in this paper to calculate the friction coefficient of a rubber sample sliding on an asphalt track at different velocities. In order to evaluate the modified model, the theoretical results are compared with some experimental results obtained using a sliding friction test set-up designed and developed in the Center for Tire Research (CenTiRe) [46]. The input parameters for theoretical models are explained in the next section.…”

“…Then, the numerical results were compared with some experimental results obtained from a sliding friction tester. The details of the test set-up and the experimental procedure can be found elsewhere [46]. In this experiment, a small rubber block of compound B was tested on the asphalt surface with the power spectrum shown in Fig.…”

Review on Friction and Wear Test Rigs: An Overview on the State of the Art in Tyre Tread Friction Evaluation

“…The FT designed and developed at the Centre for Tire Research (CenTiRe), a consortium of tyre and tyre-related industry members with two word-class universities (Virginia Tech and the University of Akron), belongs to this type of tester. This innovative device is an unmanned ground vehicle [67]. The robot shown in Figure 20, aims to reproduce all relevant tyre testing conditions on any surface and in both indoor and outdoor experiments.…”

“…The six-wheel small ground robot was developed to study friction and wear of a tread block sample on different surfaces and under different operating conditions. Emami et al [67] showed the results of an experimental investigation conducted on a styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) sample sliding on an asphalt track. The experimental results were conducted outdoor on a clean asphalt track at an outside temperature of 24 • C. The SBR sample used has dimension equal to 25.4 × 25.4 mm 2 and it is loaded with a weight of about 4.5 kg which corresponds to an equivalent pressure between the sample and the road of 81 kPa.…”

“…(a) The six-wheel small ground robot (left)[68]; (b) 3D representation of sample holder (adapted from[67]). …”