A quantitative model of wear loss based on on-line visual ferrograph

On-line visual ferrograph (OLVF) is an efficient and real-time condition monitoring device. From the point of flow conservation, on the basis of the particle coverage area data collected by OLVF, this paper deduced two models about wear loss of the tribo-pairs in the wear process, one is general mathematical (GM) model including distribution impact factor of wear particle, and other simplified GM (SGM) model which does not contain the factor. The key factor affecting the accuracy of the two models is the three dimensional information of wear particles referring to particle area and thickness. This model using the disc and the ball whose materials were GCr15 were experimentally demonstrated on a pin-on-disc testing machine. And the OLVF was used to acquire the coverage area of the wear particles, which can reflect the wear loss. It shows that, in some cases, the approximate wear loss in the process was obtained on-line conveniently. Compared with experiment values derived from other wear measurement methods like weighing mass method and surface profilometry method, the SGM model can reflect tendency of wear loss about the tribo-pairs continuously. The deviations about wear loss by the model were discussed. Meanwhile, compared with the traditional means to compute the wear loss, this SGM model could be employed both for off-line analysis and on-line condition monitoring programs.