A Coarse Grained Molecular Dynamics Model for the Simulation of Lubricating Greases

The rheological properties of lubricating greases are determined by the viscosity of the base oil, the interaction between base oil and thickener, and the interaction between thickener particles. The contribution of the oil–thickener interactions to the viscosity is well known, but the contribution...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Tribology letters 2024-09, Vol.72 (3), p.78, Article 78
Main Authors: Benois, Anthony, Echeverri Restrepo, Sebastián, De Laurentis, Nicola, Hogenberk, Femke, Giuntoli, Andrea, Lugt, Piet M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bearings
Chemistry and Materials Science
Corrosion and Coatings
Entanglement
Greases
Lithium
Lubricating greases
Manufacturing
Materials Science
Molecular dynamics
Nanotechnology
Original Paper
Permeability
Physical Chemistry
Rheological properties
Rheology
Surfaces and Interfaces
Theoretical and Applied Mechanics
Thin Films
Tribology
Viscosity
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The rheological properties of lubricating greases are determined by the viscosity of the base oil, the interaction between base oil and thickener, and the interaction between thickener particles. The contribution of the oil–thickener interactions to the viscosity is well known, but the contribution of the thickener–thickener interactions has not yet been studied by employing theoretical or computational frameworks. In this paper, we use coarse-grained molecular dynamics to simulate a fibrous microstructure, and we show that the experimentally observed viscoelastic/plastic behaviour can be well reproduced. A parametric study shows that the apparent viscosity increases with increasing fibre length, fibre stiffness and thickener concentration. This is as expected, showing that this modelling approach is useful to study effects on grease rheology that are not accessible experimentally, such as impact of fibre entanglement or agglomeration.
ISSN:1023-8883
1573-2711
DOI:10.1007/s11249-024-01878-w