Abrasive wear resistance of textured steel rings

The fundamental aim of the present research is to study the effect of dimple shape and area density on abrasive wear in lubricated sliding. The other aims are to recommend a method of obtaining the local linear wear of a textured ring on the basis of profilometric measurement and to analyse the changes in the surface topography of this ring with selection of parameters that could monitor the “zero-wear” process.The experiments were conducted on a block-on ring tester. The stationary block made from cast iron of 50 HRC hardness was ground. The rotated ground ring was made from 42CrMO4 steel of 32 HRC hardness. The rings were modified by a burnishing technique in order to obtain surfaces with oil pockets. Oil pockets of spherical and of drop shape were tested. The pit-area ratios were in the range: 7.5–20%. The tested assembly was lubricated by oil L-AN 46. Because of the great hardness of the co-acting parts the wear resistance test was carried out under artificially increased dustiness conditions. The dust consists mainly of SiO₂ and Al₂O₃ particles. Measurement of local microscopic ring wear was made using a three-dimensional scanning instrument. The tendencies of ring surface topography changes during wear were analysed. Various methods of obtaining the local wear value during a low wear process were proposed and compared. We found that a spherical shape of dimples was superior to a drop shape with regard to wear resistance of steel rings.     

Buckling phenomena related to rolling and levelling of sheet metal

The paper deals with analytical and numerical considerations of buckling phenomena in thin plates or strips under in-plane loads which typically appear during rolling and levelling, i.e. straightening by stretching, of sheet metal. Buckling due to self-equilibrating residual stresses, caused by the rolling process, in eventual conjunction with global tensile stresses (denoted as “rolling buckling”) as well as buckling during the levelling process (denoted as “stretching buckling” or “towel buckling”) are considered. Analytical estimates are derived and compared against results of numerical simulations and field observations. Mode jumping by varying the global strip tension is explained on the basis of the derived analytical solutions. It is shown how from the waves, i.e. height and length, observed on the strip sliding over or lying on a rigid plane one can provide information about the distribution of the differences in the plastic strains over the width of the strip which lead to the buckled configuration. And, vice versa, knowledge of the plastic strain distribution can be used for estimating the expected wave heights representing a measure for the geometrical quality of the rolled product. The influence of the dead weight of the strip on the post-buckling pattern is also discussed on the basis of non-linear analyses.     

Wear volume determination during running-in for PEHL contacts

The relation of wear volume and the change of average surface roughness under the “zero-wear” condition was derived, with the assumption that the original profiles of the surface below the wear plane remain exactly the same as before, i.e. no plastic deformation. The flattening of asperities on an engineering rough surface was simulated with numerical techniques. The variation in wear volume and average surface roughness with the depth of wear was studied. The pattern and the correlation length of rough surface were checked and found to have no effect on the relation of wear volume and change of average roughness. The simulated results show that the variation of wear volume and the change of average roughness can be described by a second order polynomial. The model was also validated with experimental results obtained by using a two-disc wear machine.     

Simulation of textured surface topography during a low wear process

Wear experiments were conducted on a block-on ring tester. The stationary block made from cast iron of 50 HRC hardness was ground. The rotated ground ring was made from 42CrMo4 steel of 32 HRC hardness. The rings were modified by a burnishing technique in order to obtain surfaces with oil pockets. Oil pockets of spherical and of drop shape were tested. The correlation and regression analysis of parameters of textured surface topography was carried out. Two sets of surfaces were analysed: after machining and after “zero-wear”. As the result of analysis, minimum number of parameters describing this surface kind was obtained. A simple truncation model of the ring surface change was used. Worn surface topographies, after a low wear, were also modeled in a different way. An idea of the proposed method of surface topography modeling is imposition of random surface of Gaussian ordinate distribution on the base surface (after burnishing). The modeled surfaces were correctly matched to the measured surfaces in 90% of all analysed cases. Basing on the simulation, the local wear values during a low wear process were calculated and compared with experimental ones.     

A new way to manage displacements in zones of active faults

The objective of this paper was to perform the complex study of features of force and deformation response of interfaces between structural tectonic blocks in the Earth's crust (active faults), which are under complex stress. The research was based on consideration of contacting geoblocks as typical friction pairs. This allowed authors to suggest investigation of influence of vibrations and also of lubrication induced change of physico-mechanical properties of the contact zone (this was realized by watering) on the maximum value of sliding resistance force and regime of relative tangential block displacement (slip). It was found that combined use of watering and “high-frequency” vibration fundamentally changes response regime of interface region and can initiate extensive but seismically safe “smooth” displacements of geo-blocks along the fault. Analysis of investigation results on the basis of Tomlinson model shown that revealed change of response character (including sliding regime) of boundaries between structural elements is general for friction pairs of various natures. Analysis of research results allows authors to propose the new approach to manmade control of displacements along seismically active faults. This approach seems to be an important tool in the management of seismic hazards in the future.     

An examination of friction and sliding wear properties of Zn–40Al–2Cu–2Si alloy in case of oil cut off

In this work, four ingots of Zn–40Al–2Cu–2Si alloy were produced by permanent mould casting. Two of the ingots were subjected to quench-ageing treatment. After examining the microstructure and some mechanical properties of the alloy in both as-cast and heat treated conditions, its friction and wear behaviour were investigated over a range of pressure and sliding speed using a conforming block-on-ring type machine without oil supply which corresponds to “oil cut off”.It was observed that the heat treatment increased the hardness and tensile strength of the alloy. It was also observed that in the case of oil cut off the friction coefficient of the alloy decreased with increasing pressure up to approximately 3 MPa above which the trend reversed. However, the friction coefficient increased with increasing sliding speed after showing a small decrease with it, and the temperature of the wear sample increased with both pressure and sliding speed. It was shown that the wear loss of the alloy increased exponentially with pressure, but linearly with sliding speed. However, the increase in wear loss with sliding speed became exponential at pressures above 4 MPa.As a result of this work, it was concluded that the quench-ageing treatment does not increase only the hardness and tensile strength of Zn–40Al–2Cu–2Si alloy but also its wear resistance during running without oil supply.     

New cylinder liner surfaces for low oil consumption

Anticipated emission legislation and reduced fuel consumption are the main driving forces when developing new engines. Optimization of the active surfaces in the piston system is one possible way to meet the above demands. In this study the effects of surface topography and texture direction of the ring/liner contact on oil film thickness and friction were simulated and experimentally tested. “Low wear” results from the experimental wear tests with “glide honed” smooth liner surfaces supported the “low friction” simulation results. In addition a new wear volume sensitive surface roughness parameter, R_ktot, based on the Abbot–Firestone bearing area curve was introduced.     

Theoretical investigation on the dimple occurrence in the thermal EHL of simple sliding steel–glass circular contacts

The conical depression (surface dimple) phenomena observed by Kaneta et al. (Kaneta M, Nishikawa H, Kameishi K, Sakai T. Effects of elastic moduli of contact surfaces in elastohydrodynamic lubrication. ASME J. Tribol. 1992;114:75–80; Kaneta M, Nishikawa H, Kanada T, Matsuda K. Abnormal phenomena appearing in EHL contacts. ASME J. Tribol. 1996;118:886–892.) in optical interferometry experiments are simulated numerically by a complete solution to the simple sliding circular contact thermal elastohydrodynamic lubrication (TEHL) problem. Good agreement is displayed between the theoretical and experimental results. This agreement is explained by the “temperature–viscosity wedge” mechanism, which was first proposed by Cameron (Cameron A. Hydrodynamic lubrication of rotating discs in pure sliding, a new type of oil film formation. J. Inst. Petrol 1951;37:471.). Effects of the viscosity–pressure coefficient, the ambient viscosity, and the entrainment velocity on the behavior of the surface dimples are discussed.     

Palliatives in fretting: A dynamical approach

Fretting damages are connected to numerous aspects like friction, wear, contact mechanics, fatigue and material sciences. Its quantification also requests to consider the loading history as well as the sliding condition. Based on a “fretting sliding” approach, and considering fretting wear test conditions, various palliative solutions have been investigated. Shot peening treatment, introducing compressive residual stresses, appears pertinent against crack propagation but ineffective against crack nucleation due to the activation of surface relaxation phenomena. Hard thin coatings present stable residual stresses independently of the sliding conditions. However, they only delay the crack nucleation process, when the coating is worn through, cracking phenomena are activated. To quantify the coating endurance against wear, an energy density approach has been developed. The stability of this approach has been confirmed regarding the contact size effect and illustrated through the analysis of synergic interaction between soft thick coating and solid lubricant.     

Dimples shape and distribution effect on characteristics of Stribeck curve

A purpose of this research is to study the influence of geometrical characteristics of the surface texture on the Stribeck curve in lubricating sliding.The tribosystem consists of the stationary block pressed at the required constant load 1800 N against the ring rotating at the defined speeds. Tests were conducted at increasing sliding speed of range 0.08–0.69 m/s. Every speed was maintained for 2 min. The test was carried out under conformal contact conditions. The sliding was unidirectional. The block was a part of a bearing sleeve hardened EN-GJS 400-15 cast iron with a hardness value of 50 HRC. The ring samples, 35 mm in diameter, were made from hardened 42CrMo4 steel of hardness 32 HRC. Some variants of specimen surfaces were created by burnishing technique. The area density of oil pockets S was in the range 7.5–20%. The dimples depth to length ratios were between 0.03 and 0.08. Ring surfaces with oil pockets of short drop, long drop and spherical shapes were tested.It was shown that with proper shape and dimensions as well as suitable area density of oil pockets the friction characteristic of the sliding pairs could be improved in comparison to non-textured surfaces.     

Coating thickness effects on initial wear of nitrogen-doped amorphous carbon in nano-scale sliding contact: Part I—in situ examination

This paper, the first of a two-part series, presents the empirical data obtained from in situ examination on the generation of wear particles on carbon nitride coatings by a spherical diamond counter-face during repeated sliding contacts. In particular, the effect of coating thickness, varying from 1 to 500 nm, on the generation of wear particles was examined.Based on the in situ examination, the shape transition maps for generated wear particles were obtained for carbon nitride coatings of various thickness. The results show that the critical number of friction cycles, Nc, for the transition from “no observable wear particles” to “wear particle generation” generally increased with increasing coating thickness. It was noted that up to 20 friction cycles, the maximum Hertzian contact pressure, P_max, for “no observable wear particles” regime can be increased from 1.39Y to 1.53Y if silicon was coated with carbon nitride coating thicker than 10 nm, where Y is defined as the yield strength of silicon.     

On the equivalent friction factor in hydrofilm extrusion

Hydrofilm extrusion is a kind of hydrostatic extrusion which uses a minimum amount of oil as lubricant and pressure-transmitting medium. In hydrofilm extrusion energy dissipation in the fluid lubricant between the die and working material corresponds to sliding friction in ordinary lubricated extrusion using solid lubricants. Utilizing the upper-bound theorm, an “equivalent” friction factor is defined so that the overall frictional effect between the die and working material can be conveniently investigated in terms of geometrical parameters and press velocity. On the basis of this definition, the effects of various process parameters on the frictional characteristics in hydrofilm extrusion are discussed. It is consequently found that the dominant contribution to frictional energy dissipation is made by reduction of area and press velocity. Die length is found to have very little influence on the equivalent friction factor in so far as it is longer than billet diameter.     

Measurement of wear of carbon coated sliders using atomic force microscopy and Raman spectroscopy

Wear of carbon coated sub-ambient pressure “pico” sliders is investigated during sweep testing as a function of interference height, slider design and sliding distance using atomic force microscopy. The wear results from atomic force microscopy measurements are compared with wear measurements of the carbon overcoat using Raman spectroscopy. The effect of interference on wear and disk burnishing is studied using acoustic emission measurements and atomic force microscopy. The results show that wear of a slider is higher for larger interference height and higher stiffness of the air-bearing.     

Method of movable lattice particles

A new simulation technique for modeling elastoplastic deformation and friction processes based on the dynamics of a system of “lattice particles” is proposed. In usual simulation methods like molecular dynamics, only interactions compatible to the symmetries of space (invariant with respect to translations and rotations) are used. In the proposed method, the interaction potentials depend both on the relative position of particles and the orientation of their relative radius vector with respect to prescribed “lattice directions”. We show that in spite of this relation with the “external space”, the system behaves, in linear approximation, as an isotropic elastic medium invariant to both the translations and rotations of the medium as a whole. The coupling with the external space occurs to be a surface effect, which either does not play an important role (if the motions of the boundaries are prescribed) or can be handled properly by introducing fictive compensating surface forces. Introduction of forces depending on the orientation of the local surroundings of a particle makes it possible to describe elastic media with arbitrary elastic properties by using only interactions between the next neighbours. The system of lattice particles shows better stability properties and allows one to describe large plastic deformations, avoiding problems of “packaging” typical for many particle methods.     

Analytical solution for interface stresses due to concentrated surface force

The two-dimensional analytical solution for interface stresses due to concentrated surface force has been deduced, by introducing infinite mirror points which are the images of the load point reflected by the interface and the free surface, and adopting the interchange law of differentiation. The analytical solution can be represented in terms of the summation of the “partial” Goursat's complex stress functions defined in the local coordinate systems with their origins placed at each of the mirror points. It is found that the “partial” stress functions corresponding to a higher order mirror point can be determined from those to the lower one. It is also found that the contribution of the “partial” stress functions to the stress field decreases with the increase of the corresponding mirror point order, therefore, only considering the stress functions corresponding to the first several order mirror points can give the accurate enough solution. Numerical examination by the use of boundary element method has also been carried out to verify the theoretical development.     

Strain-rate and inertia effects in the collapse of two types of energy-absorbing structure

The dynamic plastic collapse of energy-absorbing structures is more difficult to understand than the corresponding quasi-static collapse, on account of two effects which may be described as the “strain-rate factor” and the “inertia factor” respectively. The first of these is a material property whereby the yield stress is raised, while the second can affect the collapse mode, etc. It has recently been discovered [6,7]that structures whose load-deflection curve falls sharply after an initial “peak” are much more “velocity sensitive” than structures whose load-deflection curve is “flat-topped” (Fig. 1a); that is, when a given amount of energy is delivered by a moving mass, the final deflection depends more strongly on the impact velocity. In this paper we investigate strain-rate and inertia effects in these two types of structure by means of some simple experiments performed in a “drop hammer” testing machine, together with some simple analysis which enables us to give a satisfactory account of the experimental observations. The work is motivated partly by difficulties which occur in small-scale model testing of energy-absorbing structures, on account of the fact that the “strain-rate” and “inertia” factors not only scale differently in general, but also affect the two distinct types of structure differently.     

On-line measurement of damping coefficients with the help of a microcomputer

This paper describes an on-line procedure for measuring the four damping coefficients of oil film journal bearing from imposed dynamic orbits. The microcomputer is used to control dynamic forces, detect the “figure of eight” shaped orbit, find the “cross-over” point therein and, finally, compute the four damping coefficients. The presented method greatly reduces the workload involved in the experiment and measuring of damping coefficients.     

Influence of end-conditions during tube hydroforming of aluminum extrusions

Tube hydroforming experiments were conducted to develop the forming limit diagram of AA6082-T4 by utilizing three types of end-conditions: (i) “free-end”, (ii) “pinched-end” or “fixed-end” and (iii) “forced-end”. It was found that “free-end” hydroforming gives the lowest forming limits followed by “pinched-end” and “forced-end” hydroforming. It was noticed that the tube failure occurs within 5° to the extrusion weld in the “free-end” experiments, within 7° in the “pinched-end” condition and extended up to 10° in the “forced-end” hydroforming experiments. Finite element simulations were carried out to capture the effects of the weld geometry, weld mechanical properties and the end-conditions of the extruded tube on the maximum induced stress and location of the maximum von Mises stress. It was found that the anisotropy of the weld material and the end-condition used during hydroforming experiments have the largest influence on the failure location with respect to the weld center.     

Direct observation of the interface during sliding tribo-corrosion

A new test apparatus has been developed to allow the sliding interface between the inert and “active” surfaces during tribo-corrosion to be viewed directly. This apparatus allows the nominal contact area to be viewed and will, it is hoped, eventually allow the real contact area and the role of wear debris to be clearly revealed. Initial experiments reciprocating glass plates against AISI 316 balls in 0.1 M Na₂SO₄ have shown that the corrosion current does not linearly depend on the wear scar area and that the electrochemical contribution to the total material loss increases with increasing sliding distance.     

Surface potential effects on friction and abrasion of sliding contacts lubricated by aqueous solutions

This study has investigated the relationship between applied interfacial electrical potentials and friction and abrasion for steel/steel contacts in alkaline aqueous-based solutions. The potential at a steel-aqueous lubricated surface is important since it determines a number of important surface properties which influence the overall friction and resistance to abrasion. The experimental approach used a pin-on-disc rig incorporating potentiostatic control of the disc between −1.0 and +1.0 V overpotential.Tests employed a load of 50 N at a sliding speed of 0.03 m s⁻¹. EN 24 grade steel, equivalent to AISI 4340, was used as the material for the pin and disc. Tests were conducted in electrolyte that contained electroactive species, namely octanoate ions, which could be “switched on” to the surface. Coefficient of friction measurements were carried out throughout testing and later linked to potential or current density behaviour to assess the mechanical and electrochemical interactions and its effect on wear and friction. The effects of lubricity of the adsorbed layers are discussed and used to explain the performance.