Wear

Wear is the loss of material from contacting

surfaces in relative motion
Various types of wear
Defined by their mechanism of material
removal
1.5% GDP can be saved by the control of
wear

Corrosive wear
Reaction of a surface during wear due to its
chemical reaction with the environment.
Clean metal surface reacts to give contaminant
film, which is then removed removed by sliding to
expose more clean metal.
Debris particles produced by wear are often
oxides, which can cause three-body abrasive wear.
Corrosive wear can sometimes be beneficial in
that it prevents metal-to-metal contact.

Common corrodents in corrosive wear

Oxygen
Water
Atmospheric sulphur dioxide
Sea water
Organic acids
Process liquids and gases

Oxidative wear
Subset of corrosive wear
Reaction of wearing surface with oxygen in
the air to form an oxide layer
Flash temperatures depend particularly on
sliding velocity e.g. 1 m/s gives 700oC for
steel
Oxidation-scrape-reoxidation
Oxide growth follows Arrhenius equation

Possible methods to reduce corrosive wear

Identify nature of corrosive reaction
Eliminate or reduce corrosive substances e.g.
driers to remove water, partial inerting to reduce
oxygen.
Reduce temperature
Change surface material e.g. if mild abrasion,
painting or epoxy primer is possible remedy e.g. if
erosion, elastomer (rubber) is possible remedy.
Reduce sliding speed, load or presence of
abrasives

Adhesive wear
Common type and mechanism
Caused by 2 sliding surfaces sticking together
Pieces of softer surface pulled out of surface to
form debris or transferred patches on harder
countersurface
Archard wear equation: Q = KW/H
where Q is wear rate, K wear coefficient, W load
and H hardness.

Adhesive wear

Understanding adhesive wear

The wear coefficient in Archard equation may be
considered as the probability that a wear particle
will be formed by an asperity-asperity encounter.
This is related to the tendency of the two sliding
materials, A and B, to stick or adhere to each
other. Those that have a high tendency to adhere,
will have a high K.
Tendency to adhere relates to solubility and phase
diagrams. If B is soluble in A, then it will tend to
adhere and have a high adhesive wear rate.
The next slide gives a guide based on phase
diagrams on how to minimize adhesive wear by
material selection.

Mutual solubility of sliding couples

The next slide gives examples the solubilities of
metal sliding couples.
Compatibility in this context means the two metals
are mutually soluble and therefore have a high
tendency for adhesion.
The last column gives the measured wear
coefficient and shows that mutually soluble
materials tend to incur high wear rates.
Caution required as other factors can have an
influence e.g. surface films.

Possible methods to reduce adhesive wear

Use insoluble materials and avoid like-on-like.
If cannot avoid like-on-like (e.g. gears), then raise
hardness (e.g. carburizing).
Apply an insoluble materials as a coating e.g.
thermally sprayed alumina, heat treated electroless
nickel.
Use surface texture to break up adhesions or
junctions.
Operating conditions e.g. speed, load, lubrication.

Abrasive wear
Softer surface has grooves parallel to the
sliding direction
Harder asperities ploughing out or
deforming the surface of softer material
Two-body abrasive wear
Three-body abrasive wear

Wear equation for abrasive wear

Asperity or hard particle as cone of semiangle
sliding under load W across softer material of
hardness H
If Q is the volume material removed per unit
sliding distance, then
Q = KW/H
where K = wear coefficient of softer surface
K is proportional to 1/tan and so small values
(sharp particles or asperities) give large wear
coefficients K and wear rates Q.

Possible methods to reduce abrasive wear

Use hard materials e.g. alumina HV ~ 1500
Use hard materials as coatings as less susceptible
to brittle fracture
Use cermets as less brittle than ceramics e.g. hard
tungsten carbide in ductile cobalt matrix WC-Co
Use smooth surfaces by grinding and polishing as
these have low e.g. Ra<0.5m
Give protection to the surface most exposed to
wear or the most expensive/difficult to replace