Design of a tribological ball joint tester

Abstract

The automotive industry uses ball joints in the suspension systems of cars. These ball joints are subject to various forces and relative displacements which inevitably invoke wear. The same happens in other applications that use ball joints, for example human hip joints. Nowadays there are only a few test rigs that can correctly simulate wear in these joints or test the joints according to a realistic loading cycle. This paper focuses on the design of a test rig that allows parametric research on these ball joints in order to increase the performance.