Abstract
In wearing contacts, a part of the wear debris is trapped between the surfaces, creating a wear debris bed. Many researchers report such beds providing a degree of protection against further wear. It was hypothesized, that in an annular contact, the level of debris entrapment increases with the width of the annulus resulting in decrease in wear. To test this hypothesis, two series of experiments using EN1A steel and 6082T6 aluminium alloy annuli, measuring 1, 2 and 4 mm wide were carried out. When steel was used, there was no clear correlation between ring width and total mass loss or steady-state wear rate. When aluminium was used, wear decreased with the ring width according to both metrics. This behaviour appears to correlate with worn surface roughness, suggesting worn surface roughness to be a parameter controlling debris entrapment.
Highlights
The goal of experimental wear studies is to reveal material properties under controlled laboratory conditions which may be used to infer the rate of wear in complex prototypical problems
Wear of annular contacts made of EN1A steel and 6082T6 aluminium alloy was studied to test whether wider annuli entrap wear debris to a greater degree, causing the amount of wear to decrease
The experimental results in steel rings showed no particular trend in wear as the annulus width was changed
Summary
The goal of experimental wear studies is to reveal material properties under controlled laboratory conditions which may be used to infer the rate of wear in complex prototypical problems. Approximations of real-world contacts are used in some studies,[1,2,3] the most common configurations for wear tests remain the pin-on-flat and ball/cylinder-on-flat arrangements[4,5] which share the property of the contact patch being fixed relative to one body, but experiencing motion much greater in extent than its own size in the other. Many practical wear problems involve fretting contacts which experience movements that are small as a fraction of the size of the contact. Such contacts may entrap wear debris to a significant extent. It is unclear how to infer the wear rate in a fretting configuration of one geometry from a test in a different geometry
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Schedule a callMore From: Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part J: Journal of Engineering Tribology
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