Tribological properties of vanadium oxides investigated with reactive molecular dynamics

Abstract

We present a reactive molecular dynamics study on tribological properties of five vanadium oxides (V2O3,V3O5,V8O15,V9O17,VO2) under elevated temperatures and pressures. All considered stoichiometries provide lubrication with a comparatively low coefficient of friction (COF∼0.2 at 600 K, COF<0.2 at 800 and 1000 K) which is a valuable information relevant for the design of coatings containing vanadium as a lubricious agent. An overall tendency of the decrease of friction coefficient with the increase of temperature represents a tribological effect useful for self-adjusting lubrication. We observed the increasing trend of adhesion-related offset of the friction force with the decrease of oxygen content in vanadium oxides.