Empirical Wear Rate Modeling of Zinc Pot Bearing Materials Using the WVU Small-Scale Tester

摘要

The sink roll bearings in a hot-dip galvanizing line have a short life from 1 to 4 weeks. The frequent failure of these bearings leads to unscheduled line stoppage and adds to the cost of making galvanized sheet. Depending on sheet width, gage, line speed and line tension, different bearing materials are selected for the most cost-effective operation. A laboratory scale zinc pot bearing materials tester has been designed and constructed at West Virginia University for the purpose of providing reliable material wear-rate and friction coefficient data. Some of the collected test data have been presented here, together with an equation relating the parameters on which wear rate depends. The wear rate model for each bearing material pair is different and a strong function of the mating surfaces, contact pressure and velocity. For any selected contact velocity, wear rate can be measured over a wide range of contact pressures within a 24-hour test run. Observed seat wear rate is proportional to contact pressure to a power greater than 1.0 and contact velocity to a power less than 1.0.