Micro-mechanisms of wear — wear modes

Abstract

Grooves are formed on a wear surface in sliding contact and even when the contacting surfaces are of the same material the wear on the contact interface results in free particles. The abrasive friction and the abrasive wear have been proven to be the representative type of friction and wear in general sliding of surfaces from such observations. This means that the micro-mechanisms of groove formation and wear particle generation at one abrasive contact point should be analyzed in detail and the macroscopic wear properties should be explained by summarizing the unit phenomena at the macroscopic interface. The in-situ scanning electron microscopy (SEM) wear study is one of the most effective methods for this purpose. It was started in 1974, and some fruitful results have been accumulated in the past sixteen years. Possible wear modes in abrasive sliding were made clear and effective parameters were introduced to describe the abrasive wear mode diagram for metals. The practical usefulness of the diagram was shown in the estimations of abrasive wear resistance and wear mode transitions in the repeated process of sliding. Similar results are being obtained for ceramics. The present understanding on the micro-mechanisms of wear is summarized in this paper by reviewing these results of in-situ SEM wear studies.