Wear 250 (2001) 7680

A new method for measurement of particle abrasivity

D.A. Kelly, I.M. Hutchings
Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge, Pembroke Street, Cambridge, CB2 3QZ, UK

Abstract A modied micro-scale abrasive wear test has been used to study the abrasivity of a range of silica and calcium carbonate abrasives in aqueous slurries, against polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) samples. The method involves the rotation of a cylindrical disc against the specimen surface in the presence of small abrasive particles, and generates a wear scar with an imposed geometry. It allows a wider range of particle sizes to be used than the more conventional ballcratering method. For the abrasives used in these tests, differences in abrasivity by a factor of at least 16 were found. The main factor which inuenced abrasivity was particle shape. 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Polymethylmethacrylate; Abrasivity; Ballcratering method; Abrasive wear

1. Introduction While most abrasive wear tests are used to compare the resistance of materials to wear, or to study wear mechanisms, there is also considerable interest in methods which can be used to compare the wear rates produced on the same specimen material by different abrasive particles. Such tests are valuable, for example, in the design and selection of abrasive particles for use in abrasive machining processes, and also to provide information to predict the lifetimes of plant handling abrasive media. Several investigations (e.g. [1]) have adapted laboratory lapping or polishing machines to compare the abrasivity of various particles, while Bhattacharyya and Bock [2] used a modied Amsler tester in which a hard rubber disc running in an abrasive slurry was loaded against a plane sample. The use of a reciprocating wear test, with a steel block sliding over a rubber plate, forms the basis of the ASTM standard test for slurry abrasivity [3]. This test specically addresses the problem of wear in steel pipelines. In the present work, a laboratory-scale test method has been developed which allows rapid measurements of abrasivity to be made on small samples of material, by modifying a commercially available micro-scale abrasion test apparatus [4,5]. This test involves the rotation of a sphere or disc against a specimen in the presence of small abrasive particles, to generate a wear scar with an imposed geometry. If the geometry of the wear scar reproduces the geometry of either the ball or the disc, the wear scar volume may then
Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-1223-334-300; fax: +44-1223-334-567. E-mail address: imh2@cam.ac.uk (I.M. Hutchings).

be calculated by measurement of the scar dimensions. For homogeneous bulk materials, the wear volume V can be related to the total relative sliding distance S, and the normal load on the contact N, by a simple model for abrasive wear [6] which is equivalent to the Archard wear equation for sliding wear: V = SN (1)

where is the wear coefcient or specic wear rate, with SI units m3 (N m)1 . The abrasive wear resistance can be dened in terms of 1 with units (N m) m3 . For a scar of spherical geometry produced by a spherical counter-body with radius R in an initially plane specimen, the wear volume may be calculated from the scar dimensions (i.e. surface chordal diameter b or depth h): V b4 64R for b R (2)

The wear volume for a scar created by a cylindrical disc with width w is related to the length of the scar a by V a3w 16R for a R (3)

where R here represents the disc radius.

2. Experimental method and materials The abrasion tests were performed using a commercial micro-scale abrasion tester (Plint and Partners Ltd., UK, model TE66), which is designed to perform abrasion tests

0043-1648/01/$ see front matter 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 0 4 3 - 1 6 4 8 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 6 6 6 - 4

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Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of micro-scale abrasion (xed ball) apparatus.

by the ballcratering method [5]. The instrument, shown schematically in Fig. 1, allows more accurate control of the normal load and relative sliding distance than the alternative ballcratering apparatus in which the ball rests against both the specimen surface and a rotating drive shaft. In this design, the ball is clamped rmly between two coaxial driving

shafts, rotated by a motor. The sample is mounted vertically on a pivoted L-shaped arm and is loaded against the rotating counter-body by a dead weight hanging from a horizontal lever. Abrasive particles, suspended as a slurry in a suitable liquid (usually water), are supplied to the contact area. For the present investigations, the ball was replaced by a cylindrical nylon disc, 35.9 mm in diameter and 2.1 mm in width. Fig. 2 illustrates the difference in the contact geometry between a disc (i) and sphere (ii) and a plane specimen surface, and shows the denition of the scar length, a for the cylindrical counter-body. The disc forms an initial point contact with the specimen surface, tending to displace abrasive particles outwards from the contact area. As shown in previous work [7], in order for the particles to be dragged through the contact zone, some roughening of the ball surface, or at least indentation of the particles into the ball surface, is required. Even then, there appears to be a practical upper limit of about 6 m to the size of abrasive particles which will move satisfactorily through the contact zone, for a 25 mm diameter spherical counter-body [7]. With the disc-on-at geometry used in these experiments the limit appears to be much greater. The abrasives used in this study were a range of amorphous silica and calcium carbonate particles, selected to provide a wide variation in particle shape; calcium carbonate particles can be grown from solution with widely differing shapes, as well as in two different phases (calcite and aragonite) by varying the solution chemistry and growth conditions. All the particles used in this work were harder than both the PMMA substrate and the nylon disc and

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram illustrating the difference in contact made between a nylon disc (i) and a nylon ball (ii) and a plane specimen surface. Two SEM images of worn PMMA surfaces illustrate the difference in the resulting wear scar geometry. Both scars were created under the same experimental conditions of normal load 0.25 N, sliding speed 0.05 m s1 . The length a and the diameter b were used to calculate the wear volumes via Eqs. (2) and (3). The rotation axis shows the relative motion of the counter-body and abrasive particles across the specimen surface.

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D.A. Kelly, I.M. Hutchings / Wear 250 (2001) 7680

Table 1 Abrasives used in this study with a description of individual particle shape and size for each abrasive and the resulting wear coefcient Code SA SC SD SE SG CD CC CA SB CB SF CV
a

Material Silica Silica Silica Silica Silica Aragonite Calcite Calcite Silica Calcite Silica Calcite

Shape Blocky Blocky Blocky Blocky Blocky Needle Plate-like Faceted Faceted Floret Floret Spherical

Mean size (m) 15.7 11.2 152 150 6.60 18.5 2.39 5.20 14.62 5.76 8.70 9.05

(103 mm3 (N m)1 ) 2.00 1.41 2.43 1.85 2.38 1.84 2.63 2.94a 5.04 1.71a 8.20 0.497a

Denotes abrasives at a concentration of 0.75 g cm3 ; other abrasives were used at a concentration of 0.4 g cm3 .

Fig. 3. SEM images of some abrasives used in this study, illustrating the range of shapes.

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were agglomerates of smaller individual crystallites. They were typical of commercial abrasives used for polishing and cleaning applications. Table 1 lists the abrasives used, with the average particle size and a qualitative description of shape. The mean particle sizes were determined by laser granulometry while the particle shape descriptions were derived from SEM images. Typical images are shown in Fig. 3. Samples of each abrasive were suspended in distilled water at a concentration of either 0.75 or 0.4 g of abrasive per cm3 (as indicated in Table 1). A highly concentrated slurry was used as it had been shown previously in experiments with spherical counter-bodies [8] that low slurry concentrations produced imperfect, non-spherical wear scars for which the scar diameter could not be measured accurately. The abrasive materials were comparatively soft, and in order to ensure that hard abrasion was occurring (i.e. that the particles themselves were appreciably harder than the material being worn), tests were performed on PMMA samples with a Vickers hardness of 21.6 0.1 HV. A fresh nylon disc was used for each abrasive examined. All tests were performed under the same conditions, with a normal load of 0.25 N and a sliding speed of 0.05 m s1 , for sliding distances ranging from 5 to 55 m. For each abrasive, several tests were performed at different locations on each sample. The sample was then removed from the apparatus and the length a of the resulting wear scar was measured with a calibrated optical microscope. The wear volume was calculated from Eq. (3).

3. Results and discussion All the abrasive particles gave a linear dependence of wear volume on sliding distance as expected from Eq. (1). Fig. 4 illustrates typical results, for some of the silica abrasives, plotted in terms of wear scar volume (derived from the wear scar length via Eq. (3)) versus the product of normal load and

sliding distance. The wear coefcient, was then derived from the slope of such plots via Eq. (1). Values of are listed for each abrasive in Table 1. The surfaces of the wear scars generally featured longitudinal scratches and grooves in the direction of relative sliding, but in some cases, an area at the entrance to the wear scar could be differentiated which showed isolated individual indentation marks, consistent with rolling motion of the abrasive particles. These features, which have been termed scufng in previous work, have been suggested to arise from larger abrasive particles which do not immediately become entrained between the disc and the specimen surface like smaller particles, but roll outside the main contact area causing random multiple indentations. Both the scuffed region and the main abrasion scar are a result of the combined action of the counter-body and abrasive particles on the specimen surface. It has been established previously [9] that if the scuffed region is produced by a process different from that which produces the wear scar, then this region can be considered separate from the wear scar, and excluded from the overall wear volume. The fact that in this work a close linear relationship was seen between the sliding distance and the wear scar volume, excluding the scuffed region, suggests that the earlier hypothesis is indeed correct. It is suggested that these agglomerated abrasive particles break down at the entrance to the contact zone, and that abrasion results from smaller crystallites; in future work it is planned to test this suggestion by measuring particle sizes in samples of slurry which have passed through the contact zone. The values of specic wear rate, shown in Table 1 demonstrate that the particles exhibited a wide range of abrasivity. It is not straightforward to isolate the separate effects of particle size, shape or material from these results, but it is noteworthy that the highest abrasivity was seen for the silica abrasives with ne angular features (SB and SF) while the lowest was observed for the rounded calcite particles (CV). Comparison of the wear rates produced by the smallest particles (e.g. SG and CA) with those of the largest (SD and SE) suggests no signicant effect of particle size, which can probably be explained by the breakdown of at least the larger agglomerates as suggested above. Further work is planned with this experimental method to examine the inuence of particle shape in a quantitative manner, and to study the extent of particle breakdown in the contact zone.

4. Conclusions The micro-scale abrasion test has been modied by using a cylindrical disc counter-body in order to assess the abrasivity of particles which could not be used, because they were too large, in the more conventional sphere-on-at conguration. The method has been successfully applied to a range of amorphous silica and calcium carbonate agglomerate abrasive particles, and revealed large differences, by

Fig. 4. Results of wear experiments with four silica abrasives at the same concentration of 0.4 g cm3 .

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D.A. Kelly, I.M. Hutchings / Wear 250 (2001) 7680 [4] K.L. Rutherford, I.M. Hutchings, A micro-abrasive wear test, with particular application to coated systems, Surf. Coatings Technol. 79 (1996) 231239. [5] K.L. Rutherford, I.M. Hutchings, Theory and application of a micro-scale abrasive wear test, J. Testing Evaluat. 25 (2) (1997) 250 260. [6] E. Rabinowicz, L. A Dunn, P.G. Russell, A study of abrasive wear under three-body conditions, Wear 4 (1961) 345355. [7] D.N. Allsopp, R.I. Trezona, I.M. Hutchings, The effects of ball surface condition in the micro-scale abrasive wear test, Tribol. Lett. 5 (1998) 259264. [8] R.I. Trezona, D.A. Allsopp, I.M. Hutchings, Transitions between two-body and three-body abrasive wear: inuence of test conditions in the micro-scale abrasive wear test, Wear 225229 (1999) 205214. [9] R. I Trezona, I.M. Hutchings, Three-body abrasive wear testing of soft materials, Wear 233235 (1999) 209221.

a factor of up to 16, in abrasivity which can largely be attributed to differences in particle shape. References
[1] Y. Xie, B. Bhushan, Fundamental wear studies with magnetic particles and head cleaning agents used in magnetic tapes, Wear 202 (1996) 316. [2] S. Bhattacharyya, F.C. Bock, Abrasive wear of engineering materials by mineral and industrial wastes, Wear 46 (1978) 118. [3] ASTM G75-95, Standard test method for determination of slurry abrasivity (Miller number) and slurry abrasion response of materials (SAR number), Annual book of ASTM Standards, 1999, ASTM, West Conshocken, USA.