Experimental, numerical and analytical studies of abrasive wear: correlation between wear mechanisms and friction coefficient

Abstract

The transport of granular material often generates severe damage. Understanding the correlation between the friction coefficient, particle geometry and wear mechanisms is of primary importance for materials undergoing abrasive wear. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of particle geometry on wear mechanisms and the friction coefficient. Numerical and analytical simulations and experimental results have been compared. The process to be studied is the scratch made by a rigid cone with different attack angles on a 5xxx aluminium alloy (Al-Mg) flat surface. A scratch test was used and the wear mechanisms were observed for different attack angles. A numerical study with a finite element code was made in order to understand the effect of attack angle on the friction coefficient. The contact surface and the friction coefficient were also studied, and the results compared to the Bowden and Tabor model. The superposition of the numerical, analytical and experimental results showed a better correlation between the wear mechanisms and the friction coefficient. It also showed the importance of the model hypothesis used to simulate the scratch phenomenon.

Influence of Tribological Parameters on Single and Multi-indenter Scratch Behavior of Aluminum Alloy

“…In order to study the effect of scratch parameter on material behavior, numerous researches have been carried out (Mezlini et al 2005) (Woldman et al 2013) (Kato 1990). They showed that the wear mechanism depends not only on the degree of penetration, but also on normal load, sliding velocity and abrasive particle geometry.…”

Effect of Abrasive Size on Wear

“…When using an indenter with an attack angle of 60°, a transition in wear micromechanisms from microploughing to microcutting is produced with chip formation in front of the indenter (figure 4(b)). (Mezlini et al, 2005) …”

“…Ratio of microcutting to microploughing as a function of the ratio of the attack angle to the critical attack angle ( c ) (Zum Gahr, 1987) A practical example is the aluminum alloy sheets used in trucks for transporting granular material, which show damage caused by the abrasion of sand and gravel particles. An analysis of granular material show abrasive particles of different sizes and morphologies: large particles tend to have a round shape (figure 3a), while small particles have greater angularity (figure 3b) (Mezlini et al 2005). Mezlini et al (2005) performed scratch tests on 5xxx aluminum alloy to study the effect of the attack angle (geometry of the particle) on abrasive wear micromechanisms.…”

“…An analysis of granular material show abrasive particles of different sizes and morphologies: large particles tend to have a round shape (figure 3a), while small particles have greater angularity (figure 3b) (Mezlini et al 2005). Mezlini et al (2005) performed scratch tests on 5xxx aluminum alloy to study the effect of the attack angle (geometry of the particle) on abrasive wear micromechanisms. The authors used rigid cones with different attack angles (Figure 3).…”

Evaluation of abrasive mechanisms in metallic alloys during scratch tests: a numerical-experimental study in micro-scale.

“…MEZLINI et al, 2005;TKAYA et al, 2007). Therefore, the damage model has to be applied to obtain an enhanced analysis of the material mechanical behaviour.…”