Electrical Contact Resistance Approach to Tribological Properties of Artificial Joints

Abstract

The tribo-electrification mechanisms had been successfully applied to dynamic monitor the tribological properties between the metal films by our laboratory members. Moreover, the novel method of using continuous tribo-electrification variations for monitoring showed more sensitive and discriminative than that by the continuous friction coefficient variations as usual. However, the above method is only suitable for the conducted material pairs. This study is based on the above views to further develop another novel method for dynamic monitoring the tribological properties between the semiconductor films in the friction process. The experiment was conducted by the self-developed friction tester and its measure system. The continuous variations of electrical contact resistance and friction coefficient were measured for monitoring the timings of film rupture between the semiconductor films. Moreover, the wear loss was measured by an accuracy balance and the SEM was used to observe the structures of material transfer. Therefore, the wear mechanisms of Ti sliding against Ti with TiO2-film under different normal loads can be investigated. According to the experimental results of this study, the novel method of using electrical contact resistance variations does show great potentialities for dynamic monitoring the tribological properties of the TiO2-film.