Journal article
Wear and tribocorrosion of AISI 52100 steel in wind turbine blade bearings
Tribology international, Vol.226, pp.1-20
02/2027
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Abstract
Seawater ingress into offshore wind turbine blade bearings can promote tribocorrosion, leading to accelerated degradation and reduced component reliability. To better understand this damage mechanism, the wear and tribocorrosion behaviour of AISI 52100 bearing steel was investigated in dry and seawater mimicking conditions at three sliding velocities representative of wind turbine blade bearing operating conditions. Electrochemical characterisations, including open circuit potential, potentiodynamic polarisation, and potentiostatic measurements, were further employed to elucidate the tribocorrosion mechanisms and quantify the individual contributions of wear, corrosion, and their synergistic interactions to the overall material loss. Results in the dry environment showed that increasing the sliding ratio, defined as the ratio of oscillation amplitude to the Hertzian contact width, led to a significant rise in wear rate, whereas in a seawater environment, this increase was less pronounced. Confocal and scanning electron microscopy revealed that mild abrasion was the dominant wear mechanism under dry conditions, while in the seawater environment, corrosion augmented the abrasion. In addition to a wear scar, the tribocorrosion damage produced distinct surface features, such as differentially corroded and unaffected zones. Overall, the findings demonstrated that corrosion-assisted wear and pure mechanical wear accounted for respectively ~61% and ~28% of the material loss while wear-assisted corrosion and pure corrosion contributed only approximately~10% and ~1%, respectively, of the material loss.
Details
- Title
- Wear and tribocorrosion of AISI 52100 steel in wind turbine blade bearings
- Creators
- Mahdi Jalilvand - Flinders UniversityMohsen Feyzi - Flinders UniversityReza Hashemi - Flinders UniversityKhosro Fallahnezhad - Southern Cross UniversityAmir Zanj - VAWT-X Energy Pty Ltd (Australia, Adelaide)
- Publication Details
- Tribology international, Vol.226, pp.1-20
- Publisher
- Elsevier Ltd
- Grant note
- Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship
This research was supported by the Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship for Mr. Mahdi Jalilvand's PhD. The authors acknowledge the facilities, and the scientific and technical assistance of Microscopy Australia (ROR: https://ror.org/042mm0k03) enabled by NCRIS and the government of South Australia at Flinders Microscopy and Microanalysis (Flinders University), and Adelaide Mi-croscopy (Adelaide University). We also gratefully acknowledge Dr. Danielle Hughes (Flinders University) for her support with SEM operation and Mr. Rodney Pratt (Adelaide University) for his support with the confocal microscopy facility.
- Identifiers
- 991013405420602368
- Copyright
- © 2026 The Author(s).
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Science and Engineering
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article