Abstract

Space irradiations have an important effect on the properties of lubricating materials applied in spacecraft. Herein, dense WS2-Ni nanocomposite film with excellent property was prepared and used to construct two kinds of WS2-Ni-oil lubricating coatings. Their tribological properties and behaviors were comparatively investigated under vacuum, atomic oxygen (AO) and proton radiation (PR) irradiations, respectively. The results indicate that the irradiations yield the obviously different influences on lubricities of both coatings due to different bombardment energies. Surprisingly, it is uncommon that WS2-Ni-PFPE coating after irradiations significantly decreases friction coefficient from 0.09 to about 0.01. Adsorptions of space oils onto crystal planes of WS2 are firstly revealed on the molecular scale. It provides design guideline for solid-oil composite lubrication applied in space.

Keywords Plus：CARBON，FRICTION，FILMS，WS2

Published in TRIBOLOGY INTERNATIONAL，Volume212；10.1016/j.triboint.2025.110998，DEC 2025