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Friction is an important resistance force that slows or stops motion. But it can also create wear and tear, the gradual removal of solid material. This almost always leads to a loss of functionality.
But friction isn’t always bad. Friction and adhesion can help keep wallpaper on the wall or a car on the road.
During product development, it’s important to know how friction impacts your product and its users in the long term as a matter of safety, quality, and longevity. Tribometers can help measure this friction to better predict how your product will perform in the real world. But can your work benefit from an instrument like this?
What’s Possible With a Tribometer
Tribometers are designed to perform a very particular function: to simulate friction and wear in a controlled setting with very specific conditions. Why is this so important? Friction and wear are sensitive to fluctuations in factors like temperature, load, and humidity. A tribometer can test friction and wear in a controlled environment, with standardized conditions and test results that can be closely monitored.
The publication, Science Direct, is also quick to point out that there is a real, tangible, practical benefit to testing friction and wear without the challenges of putting wear and friction on original equipment. They provide the example of cylinders and pistons—both examples in which wear is of notable economic importance, not to mention function and safety.
Testing this kind of equipment is important, but running friction and wear tests in full-fledged internal combustion engines is constricted by time and resources. That’s why in cases like this, preliminary testing on lubricants, cylinders, and pistons is performed on test machines. In these cases, tribometers provide precise friction and wear measurements, as well as other factors like temperature.
Tribometers are becoming increasingly essential in these new kinds of testing situations, where emerging technologies give professionals more in-depth testing methods, observations, and measurements.
Here’s the key: testing in these kinds of situations, especially with handheld and portable instruments like Kett’s Heidon H37 3D Portable Friction Tester unlocks a range of possibilities in process assessment and Research & Development. These laboratory-grade instruments can be used anywhere and at any angle, to perform tasks like analyzing coating formulations on the actual finished products. Not just test panels or experimentation settings.
In a manufacturing setting, professionals can test friction and wear right on the production line. The result is improved quality assessments and better throughputs. Where manufacturers could not previously perform tests, they can now get reliable, accurate, and repeatable test results in moments with Kett’s H37 3D Portable Friction Tester on products like:
- Liquids
- Films
- Fabrics
- Glass
- Plastics
- Cosmetics
- Floor coverings
- Papers
- Fibers
- Foods
That is what’s possible with a tribometer: trustworthy, accurate results in laboratory and testing settings, even in the field.
Could a Tribometer Improve Your Work?
Tribometers track the wear that objects undergo through friction; when two surfaces come into contact while they are moving. They help study this process to understand the wear better. Additionally, they are used to monitor how lubricants impact friction and wear on these surfaces.
In more technical terms, tribometers measure the coefficient of friction, the COF, between two surfaces. This COF determines how “moveable” something is. Two lubricated surfaces will have a low coefficient of friction, while new rubber tires on a tarred road will have a tremendously high coefficient of friction. Tribometers track the COF in the field and test or laboratory environments to better understand the COF of a machine, a surface, or an object. It can help you understand:
- If a floor is too slippery to be considered safe
- If manufacturing machinery creates too much friction because it isn’t properly lubricated
- How much wear a shoe or tire has
- If the paint on a car has enough adhesion or static friction to stay applied
- Whether an item has enough friction to be used safely
So, the question becomes: Could your work benefit from a tribometer?
Kett’s Heidon H37 3D Muse Tribometer outperforms yesterday's friction testing methods like conventional incline methods and manual strain gauges that rely on horizontal orientations and imprecise testing protocols. This is the only three-dimensional handheld friction tester that doesn’t rely on a flat surface while also providing accurate testing in the field—you can get accurate readings at any angle.
This opens the door to new possibilities regarding product and process assessment, making it possible to get readings anywhere.
If you are relying on inclined plane friction testing, that means you have to test a block of mass on an inclined plane, identify the angle at which the mass begins to slide, and then use this angle to calculate the force of friction.
But this doesn’t work in every instance. It doesn’t help when tracking adhesion strength, the efficacy of a lubricant in action, or how much wear there is when the moving parts of a cylinder or turbine come together. And it’s not very precise.
On the other hand, tribometers like the H37 3D Muse provide accurate results in less than ten seconds and tests are very repeatable. You can even automatically calculate average readings to limit the possibility of an error on heterogeneous surfaces.
This instrument is making it possible to test the friction of objects, materials, and applications that were previously untestable, including:
- Floors
- Walls
- Furniture
- Cosmetics
- Belts and rollers on conveyor lines
- Paper
- Film
- Fabric
The H37 3D Muse Tribometer also accurately measures textiles, packaging, leather, and lubricants. It helps develop stronger, safer, better-performing products of all kinds.
So, can your work benefit from an advanced tribometer like ours? The answer is a resounding yes. Kett’s H37 3D Muse Tribometer is the right choice for better outcomes.
Connect with our team of expert engineers today to learn more about how we can get you started with a tribometer that’s reshaping the way friction and wear are tested.
