Nickel-Titanium: A New Candidate Material for Oil-Lubricated Bearing and Mechanical Component Applications

摘要

An intermetallic nickel-titanium alloy, 60NiTi (60wt%Ni, 40wt%Ti), is shown to be a promising candidate bearing material for oil-lubricated rolling and sliding contact applications such as bearings and gears. 60NiTi, processed via a high temperature, high-pressure powder metallurgy technique, offers a broad combination of physical properties that make it unique among bearing materials. 60NiTi is hard, electrically conductive, highly corrosion resistant, readily machined prior to final heat treatment, and non-magnetic. Figure 1 shows the polished, grade 5 bearing balls used in this study. No other bearing alloy, metallic or ceramic, encompasses all of these attributes. Since 60NiTi contains such a high proportion of titanium and possesses many metallic properties, it was expected to exhibit poor tribological performance typical of titanium alloys, namely galling type behavior and rapid lubricant degradation [1]. In this paper, the oil-lubricated behavior of 60NiTi is studied.