what is grease they use in gears and stuff? Why does it need to be replaced occasionally?
In: Engineering
You could be quite a bit more specific if you are asking about some particular object or machine, but generally speaking grease is a petroleum product, like oil, oil is meant to flow and grease is meant to sit where it is applied.
Fat could also be considered grease, imagine butter, but it would break down very quickly if used as machine lubricant.
That brings us to heat, bearing grease will be stable at several hundred degrees, maintaining it’s greasiness so to speak. Imagine a skateboard wheel, there is a fixed axle, and the wheel has to spin around to roll right? The middle of the wheel has metal ball bearings to allow it to roll and those are in metal housing, the bearings spinning around in the housing produce friction and heat, which wears the metal, the grease sits in there to slow that process and let the bearing run smoothly for a long time
Eventually the grease gets old and environmental contaminants make it lose effectiveness so you go in and put fresh grease in if you’re servicing something that hasn’t had it in a while
Latest Answers