Abstract
Wear is the inevitable damage process of surfaces during sliding contact. According to the well-known Archard's wear law, the wear volume scales with the real contact area and as a result is proportional to the load. Decades of wear experiments, however, show that this relation only holds up to a certain load limit, above which the linearity is broken and a transition from mild to severe wear occurs. We investigate the microscopic origins of this breakdown and the corresponding wear transition at the asperity level. Our atomistic simulations reveal that the interaction between subsurface stress fields of neighboring contact spots promotes the transition from mild to severe wear. The results show that this interaction triggers the deep propagation of subsurface cracks and the eventual formation of large debris particles, with a size corresponding to the apparent contact area of neighboring contact spots. This observation explains the breakdown of the linear relation between the wear volume and the normal load in the severe wear regime. This new understanding highlights the critical importance of studying contact beyond the elastic limit and single-asperity models.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.