Lubricant Chemistry in Rolling Contact Fatigue—The Performance and Mechanism of One Antifatigue Additive

Abstract

The paper describes studies towards developing lubricant additive technology to improve the fatigue performance of an oil. The extraordinary performance of a particular organic phosphonate antifatigue additive observed in the authors' laboratory and elsewhere is reviewed together with conflicting EHD film thickness studies of this additive reported in the literature. New optical EHD measurements and electron microscope and microprobe studies which define the mechanism by which the additive acts, are presented.