In Europe it is approximated that around six million people are active in sport shooting. Currently, most bullets are manufactured out of lead which in many cases is combined with a copper jacket. There are several reasons for using lead; lead is relatively cheap, soft, and has a high density, and is therefore often the ideal material for bullets. Currently, the EU is seeking a restriction or ban on the use of lead in firearm bullets, with the main motivation that hunting with lead bullets might result in lead poisoning of both animals and people. The proposed lead ban will also have a major impact on sport shooting, as it is likely to be subjected to the same regulations. One caliber that has been shown to be very difficult to produce as a lead-free alternative is 22lr (long rifle), which today is the most common caliber for sport shooting in many disciplines. Today, there are not many scientific investigations available which show the performance of lead versus lead-free ammunition in caliber 22lr, even though it would make sense to investigate the possibilities of designing lead-free ammunition before a possible lead ban is further discussed. In this work the performance of two common lead-free 22lr-cartridges is evaluated and shown in comparison with existing lead-based ammunition, with a primary focus on sport shooting. Performance has been evaluated under both summer and winter conditions to cover different sports shooting disciplines. The results of this study clearly show the difficulty of finding lead-free 22lr cartridges with acceptable performance on the market today. In fact, the performance of the tested lead-free ammunition is so poor that the EU’s proposed lead ban could completely ruin shooting as a sport due to a lack of functioning ammunition.

A simple and inexpensive corrosion sensor has been manufactured to study the corrosion rate of new and water contaminated lubricating grease using a galvanic cell. The galvanic charge is developed between ENIG (electroless nickel immersion gold) and zinc, manufactured by selectively plating on a custom manufactured interdigitated PCB (printed circuit board). This paper shows the methodology in using this concept for any application which may require quantifying the corrosivity of a liquid or semisolid which could be applied to the surface of the sensor. Water contamination is a problem in many grease lubricated machine components, so a sensor concept was developed and a correlation between water content and the corrosion rate is shown. This method could be used to precisely study the corrosion rate of aged or contaminated lubricants and could potentially be used as a cheap and simple way to estimate water contamination of grease. To the knowledge of the authors, this sensor concept has not been used in industry or literature.

Machine maintenance is important for improving machine uptime, reliability, and reducing costs. Grease is used in most rolling element bearings, and one common failure criterion is water contamination, so developing a sensor which can detect water content automatically without human input could be a useful endeavor. The temperature dependence on the dielectric properties of water-contaminated grease is investigated in this paper with computer logged instrumentation. This method has been termed Dielectric Thermoscopy (DT). Several off the shelf (two lithium, one lithium complex, and two calcium sulphonate complex) and one unadditivized lithium grease are tested with varying amounts of water contamination from 0% to approximately 5%. Another grease is tested with small increments of added water from 0% to 0.97% to test the resolution of the measurement. The purpose is to use the capacitance temperature slope (termed dielectric thermoscopy) to show correlations to the water content of the grease sample and investigate if any grease types will pose problems in the measurement. A small, custom made fringe field capacitance sensor with an integrated temperature sensor has been used for this characterization and data is logged automatically with laboratory equipment and a PC. A useable and positive correlation to water content and the DT measurement of roughly 0.5 pF per 10 °C and percentage of water is found, although it was found that some greases have different behavior than others.

The temperature dependence on the dielectric properties of water-contaminated grease is investigated in this article. The purpose of this investigation was to identify the dielectric properties that could be measured to differentiate varying levels of water contamination in calcium sulfonate complex (CaS-X) grease with three different test cells with the purpose of eventually developing a grease condition sensor. Measuring the change in dielectric constant over a small temperature change yielded useful estimations of water content and amount of grease where the added water content ranged from 0.22% to about 5.5%. Additionally, other parameters such as incomplete fill/coverage of the sensors were investigated as a prestudy. The results from this set of experiments show that the measurement has potential to be developed into a condition monitoring sensor in the future.

The temperature dependence on the dielectric properties of water-contaminated grease is investigated in this article. The purpose of this investigation was to identify the dielectric properties that could be measured to differentiate varying levels of water contamination in calcium sulfonate complex (CaS-X) grease with three different test cells with the purpose of eventually developing a grease condition sensor. Measuring the change in dielectric constant over a small temperature change yielded useful estimations of water content and amount of grease where the added water content ranged from 0.22% to about 5.5%. Additionally, other parameters such as incomplete fill/coverage of the sensors were investigated as a prestudy. The results from this set of experiments show that the measurement has potential to be developed into a condition monitoring sensor in the future.

Water-contaminated grease samples are investigated with attenuation spectra in the visible and near-infrared (NIR) regions in this article. The purpose of this investigation was to identify a model with optical attenuation spectra such that the water content of grease samples could be characterized with a simple measurement setup using common methodology from the field of instrumental chemistry. The ratio between two chosen wavelengths of light appears to approximate the water content of grease samples with an acceptable coefficient of determination using a methodology to show what can potentially be done to develop condition monitoring tools. To illustrate the outlined method, a prestudy of grease aging and oxidation levels is also investigated to show that other variables do not significantly change the measurement.

The purpose of this paper is to convey a simple and effective method to mix water with grease and verify the homogeneity of the mixture using Karl-Fischer (KF) titration as the analysis tool. This is required to better develop a future water in grease sensor for on-line condition monitoring. This paper will also attempt to investigate how well KF titration functions as a tool for measuring water content in grease. Additional investigations include how the water content varies with time in grease samples open to atmosphere at different temperature. This research verifies a simple grease mixing method and investigates the water transport in water contaminated grease samples.

Wear of starved oil-lubricated heavily loaded, oscillating journal bearings, which operates at low sliding speed and under dynamic load, was studied. These bearings were normally intermittently lubricated by grease or oil. No distinct difference in wear rate could be discerned between the CuSn12 reference and CuSn8Ni15 sample bushings. Since the oil flow and pressure were low, most of the oil escaped from the contact, resulting in metal-to-metal contact between pin and bushing, and yielding initial adhesive wear that quickly evolved into abrasive wear. Due to the relative high surface roughness and hardness of the pin, the system did not perform well as bearing. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the World Tribology Congress (Kyoto, Japan 9/6-11/209).

Five different anti-wear additives, suitable to formulate environmentally adapted hydraulic fluids, were tested. The used base fluid was a saturated, environmentally adapted synthetic complex ester. The tested materials were steel-steel and bronze-steel. A modified Falex pin and a vee-block tester were used for the tribotests. XPS was used to characterize the surfaces. It was found that the new types of more polar additives work better than the traditional ones, though they can give selective transfer of cupper to the steel pin. To use this type of additives in fully formulated products more investigations have to be performed.