HIPERFAN contributes to a new approach to direct coat the specimens and took the status quo of current established journal bearing materials to a new level. Simulation assisted design and production of the individual single layer combined with tribometer testings over the entire Stribeck curve and under emergency running conditions (already in the early development stage) has been established within HIPERFAN and enabled a fast screening of multiple material combinations and will develop a comprehensive understanding of the underlying tribological system. Within the frame of HIPERFAN new (systematically analysed, characterized and optimized) journal bearing materials have been developed.
In the first reporting period, various hardware setups located at the different project partners have been redesigned, adapted and successfully tested to cover the needs of HIPERFAN. Proper metallurgical screening methods and related analysis routines have been established to assess numerous coating properties. For the tribological testing appropriate test-programs have been designed to verify the capability of the state of the art materials and other deposited coatings. These State of the Art Materials were successfully characterized acting as Baseline for the new single layer materials established via HIPERFAN.
The process simulation tool has been updated and correlated with experiments to predict several properties such as film thickness distribution and chemical composition.
The second reporting period covered a systematic investigation of the strategies set in reporting period one. The coating development (starting with a metallurgical screening followed by scaleup activities and coating of the test specimens for sub- and full-scale testing) resulted in several different single layer materials fully characterized. The testing strategy itself generated a solid database to interpret and rank the results and draw conclusions for the real application.
The development of the simulation software showed good progress at the alignment of the calculation in comparison to experimental results. Adding new simulation features covering an extended range of the coating process generated additional value and deeper understanding
During the third and final reporting period the metallurgical screening as well as the upscaling of the results has been finished. The findings of the tribological tests during the previous reporting periods generated input in terms of structure and composition for the development of improved coatings resulting in various sub and full-scale testcampaigns. The functionality of the Virtual Machine has been extended significantly. A grain growth model has been implemented and it is possible to calculate the phases of multi material coatings aligned and verified by XRD patterns. The interface of the real coating rig and the digital twin thereof has been improved to actively monitor and control the coating process.
Conclusion of the results of Hiperfan as part of CleanSky2 program:
• Representative sub and fullscale testing methodologies have been established to screen and characterize new journal bearing materials over the entire stribeck curve deposited on the bore or the shaft.
• Existing material limitations have been evaluated defining the development goals for new journal bearing materials
• Several journal bearing coatings have been deposited and their tribological, mechanical and chemical properties have been evaluated. The best performing coatings meet the agreed goals especially for lifetime wear requirements.
• A postmagnetron technology allows to coat bores from up to three different targets independently controlled.
• The developed process simulation tool (virtual machine, VM) is able to simulate the coating process and to calculate critical properties such as coating and precleaning distributions, complex kinematics, chemical and phase composition and the grain growth of coatings.
• The results of HIPERFAN have been disseminated on several conferences and three peer reviewed open access papers.
• Overall, the developed coatings show sufficient performance in the conducted tribological tests and set the basis for future exploitation activities targeting the final specifications of the application in terms of lifetime performance and initial adaptability
