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Updated: Oct 6, 2025

Experiments on Ultrasonic Lubrication Using a Piezoelectrically-assisted Tribometer and Optical Profilometer
Published on: September 28, 2015
Effect of lubricants on the rotational transmission between solid-state gears
Huang-Hsiang Lin1, Jonathan Heinze1, Alexander Croy1
1Institute for Materials Science and Max Bergmann Center of Biomaterials, TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
Abstract:
Lubricants are widely used in macroscopic mechanical systems to reduce friction and wear. However, on the microscopic scale, it is not clear to what extent lubricants are beneficial. Therefore, in this study, we consider two diamond solid-state gears at the nanoscale immersed in different lubricant molecules and perform classical MD simulations to investigate the rotational transmission of motion. We find that lubricants can help to synchronize the rotational transmission between gears regardless of the molecular species and the center-of-mass distance. Moreover, the influence of the angular velocity of the driving gear is investigated and shown to be related to the bond formation process between gears.
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