Abstract
Sintered bronze bearing specimens having various permeabilities within the range of 0.6-60 × 10-3 darcys were prepared for measurements of the sliding noise using a resting apparatus which was designed by us. The specimens were made from atomized bronze alloy powders having three kinds of particle size of 200/250, 250/350, 350/400 mesh by controlling the intercommunicating porosity of bearing specimens in 6, 9, 12, 15, 18 and 21 vol% during compacting, sintering and sizing processes.
The results obtained were as follows;
With the decrease of permeability from about 60 × 10-3 darcys, the sliding noise also decreased gradually and came to a minimum level at a certain value of permeability, which was about 2 × 10-3 darcys in this study. However, when the specimens having smaller values of permeability than the certain value were driven. the sliding noise rather showed a tendency of increase with decreasing permeability.
And on causalities in the above results, they were able to be explained by considering the effects of permeability upon the mechanism of self-lubrication of Sintered porous bearings.
