A boundary element formulation for three-dimensional sliding wear simulation

Abstract

In this paper a boundary element formulation for three-dimensional sliding wear problems is presented. In the proposed formulation, the wear problem is described by modified boundary integral equations to include sliding wear. A linear wear law is used to model wear and an incremental sliding technique is adopted to solve the non-linear wear problem. Both cases, of one and both bodies losing material are investigated. The proposed method is validated initially by analysing the classic problem of pin-on-disc wear experiment and is subsequently applied to a total hip arthroplasty wear problem. The analysis demonstrates that the proposed boundary element formulation is efficient for solving sliding wear problems and particularly for cases involving complicated geometries, such as the artificial hip joint. Due to the boundary only modelling requirement, the computational effort remains low. In case of incrementing the sliding distance in advance, some optimization of the increment size must be carried out for the total CPU time to remain low and the final geometries of the bodies to be smooth. Using an optimum increment formulation, the solution speeds up as the sliding increments increase without great loss of accuracy.