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EHL (Elasto Hydrodynamic Lubrication)
/ Accessories
EHL 3D Colour Mapping System (Part code: EHD3DMAP)
On this page: Software | Upgrade Of PCS EHD Systems
The 3D SLIM Mapper System is an extension of the capabilities of the current PCS EHD system. The EHD system currently measures the central film thickness of a fluid in a contact. The 3D SLIM Mapper allows a complete three-dimensional map of the film thickness to be generated from digital pictures of the contact.
Further reading on the 3D colour mapping system can be found showing applications of the 3D SLIM Mapper System.
Software
The software for the system is comprised of two parts. The first part is the control software which allows the user to conduct a test on the EHD system and acquire images of the contact under user-defined test conditions. The entire test is stored on the PC as a 'Project' and is portable as a subdirectory. The control software can only be used on the EHD PC and a screen shot is shown below.
A screen shot of the image acquisition software during a test
The second part of the software is the off-line analysis of the images. The user loads the project into the analysis package and can produce 3D maps of any areas of interest - or the whole contact - at various spacial resolutions. The analysis software can be used on other PCs. Post processing of the resultant data (a matrix of film thicknesses) is at the user's discretion and it can be displayed on most commercial 3D Surface graph packages.
Example Results
3D contact with projected contours
An inverted image of 3D contact
The two maps seen above have been generated from the bitmap of the contact seen below. The fluid was a standard mineral engine oil run at 40°C and approximately 0.2 m/s, pure rolling.
As shown, once the maps have been generated the full form of the contact can be investigated using different viewing angles. In this example the lobes and rear constriction of the EHD contact are easily visible
Acquired image during test
Upgrade Of PCS EHD Systems
The 3D SLIM Mapper uses the current mechanical and electronics unit. Upgrading simply requires a new PC which includes a colour framegrabber and a digital colour camera (with ancillaries). The 3D SLIM Mapper also uses different spacer layer thickness disks to give good discrimination between colours within its range of up to 300nm. Calibration is currently done with a calibration oil - allowing user recalibration whenever required.
