Direct current bias applied to hot flame diamond deposition produces smooth low friction coatings

As-deposited diamond coatings generally have a high surface roughness which results in a high friction coefficient and extensive wear of the counter material in sliding contact. Therefore several methods for smoothening diamond coatings have been proposed, such as laser polishing, molten metal etching, thermochemical polishing and mechanical polishing. All these methods have some disadvantage e.g. long processing time or high processing temperature. Furthermore, they are all post-deposition treatments i.e. the manufacture of these coatings requires at least two processing steps, deposition and smoothening. With the present method which combines d.c. bias with hot flame diamond deposition, a smooth diamond surface is produced during the actual growth of the film. No post-deposition treatment is necessary. The surface roughness is not dependent on the coating thickness which means that thick coatings with smooth surface can be produced. In fact, the method has a smoothening effect, i.e. rough surfaces can be made smooth. The method is comparable to conventional hot flame deposition of diamond as to growth rate and cost of producing the coatings. The coatings have a nano-crystalline structure and a surface roughness of Ra = 25 nm, and result in a friction coefficient of 0.1 or less in dry sliding and about 0.05 in water-lubricated sliding against cemented carbide. Their wear resistance is virtually the same as that of conventional diamond films.     

硬盘巨磁电阻磁头的超精密抛光工艺

硬盘巨磁电阻磁头的抛光可分为自由磨粒抛光和纳米研磨,在自由磨粒抛光中,精确控制载荷和金刚石磨粒的粒径,可以避免脆性去除实现延性去除。通过控制抛光过程中的抛光盘表面粗糙度、金刚石粒径大小及粒径分布和载荷等进行滚动磨粒和滑动磨粒比例的调控,获得较好的磁头表面质量和较高的材料去除率。在自由磨粒抛光阶段,先采用铅磨盘抛光,然后用锡磨盘抛光,以纳米研磨作为最后一道抛光工序对磁头表面进行研磨,获得了亚纳米级粗糙度的磁头表面。用两种工艺制作的纳米研磨盘进行加工,分别获得了0.37nm和0.8nm的磁头表面粗糙度,去除率分别为5.3 nm/min和3.9nm/min。     

Transfer during unlubricated sliding wear of selected metal systems

Results of pin-on-disk sliding tests in vacuum, with copper, CuNi, nickel and molybdenum sliding against iron, indicate that initial transfer events involve discrete fragments. We propose that the process involved in the initial transfer events is a consequence of local shear instabilities which develop at large plastic strains. In copper samples the initial transfer elements are lamellar, with layer thickness equal to the cell thickness in the highly deformed base material adjacent to the sliding interface.Prolonged sliding gives rise to the formation of transfer layers or patches on the specimen surface. These layers or patches are composed of finely mixed material derived from the two sliding counterparts as well as scattered pieces of more recently transferred fragments. Typical wear debris particles are generated from the transfer layers or patches.Transfer tendencies for different materials combinations can be predicted from an adhesion point of view if geometrical effects are properly considered. Combining theoretical predictions of transfer tendencies and experimental observations of transfer and geometrical effects, one finds that for a pin-and-disk system the disk should be made of the material having the higher cohesive strength.     

Subsurface deformation and damage accumulation in aluminum–silicon alloys subjected to sliding contact

The study of plastic deformation and damage accumulation below the contact surfaces is important in order to understand the dry sliding wear behaviour of aluminum alloys. Experimental evidence exists for the nucleation of voids and microcracks around second phase particles in the material layers adjacent to the contact surface. Propagation of these cracks at a certain depth below the surface may lead to the creation of long, thin plate-like wear debris particles. This work studied the deformation processes during sliding wear by means of metallographic observations of subsurface layers in an Al–7% Si (A356 Al) alloy and by finite element analyses. Specifically, the accumulation of subsurface stresses and strains was investigated, using a coupled structural-thermal finite element model based on the Voce-type exponential stress–strain relationship obtained from the sliding wear tests. Additionally, temperature and strain rate effects were taken into account using a constitutive equation based on Johnson–Cook and Cowper–Symonds models.Accordingly during sliding, the flow stress in subsurface layers increased rapidly and reached a saturation stress after a finite number of sliding contacts. The variation of hydrostatic pressure for different loading conditions was also determined as a function of sliding passes: as the sliding process progressed from the first to the seventh contacts, the hydrostatic pressure at the surface increased from 1150 to 1300 MPa. A total temperature increase of 45 K occurred at the surface after the seventh sliding contact. A debris formation model was proposed in which the presence of a maximum damage gradient at critical depth was considered. The model showed that, with a sliding velocity of 10 m/s, and a normal load of 150 N per unit thickness in mm, the material location where the maximum rate of damage occurred corresponded to a normalized depth (depth/counterface diameter) of 0.060. Increasing the load to 250 N/mm caused an increase in the critical depth of damage (a normalized depth of 0.085). Comparisons with the experimental subsurface crack observations indicate that the proposed damage rate calculations provide a good estimation of the subsurface crack propagation depth.     

Tribological roles of nanometre thick Ag layers on Hertzian macroscopic contacts

Abstract

Tribological performance of subnano to nanometre thick Ag layers deposited on Si(111) has been examined under ultra high vacuum conditions to understand effect of surface thin layers on the wear and friction characteristics. The slider was made of a diamond sphere 3 mm in radius. As a result, a minimum of the coefficient of friction 0·007 was observed over a film thickness range of 1·5–10 nm. The sliding planes were observed by Auger electron spectroscopy, reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED), synchrotron orbital radiated X-ray diffraction (SOR-XD) and scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM). No worn particles were found after 100 reciprocal sliding cycles, and the very low friction coefficient lasted for at least 1000 sliding cycles. Observations using STM on the sliding surfaces confirmed that the stacking Ag(111) planes slid. The SOR-XD and RHEED verified that a tribo-induced orientation of polycrystal film occurs as Ag(111) sliding planes are oriented parallel to the sliding direction on the track. The friction force of as deposited epitaxial Ag films as a function of the load was constant. On the other hand, in the 5 nm thick Ag films annealed to form complete single crystals, the friction coefficient showed a strong load dependency. At a load of 250 mN or more, the annealed films showed a low and static friction coefficient. These results suggested that the shearing resistance of nanometre thick Ag layers exhibits a strong anisotropic performance within the thickness range of nanometres, along with an orientation of Ag during sliding. Experimental results of sliding tests were discussed on the contribution of surface atoms to the friction, an extraordinarily low wear rate of the Ag layers, and the relationship between the nanoscopic structure and macroscopic tribological performance.     

Tribological behavior between micro- and nano-crystalline diamond films under dry sliding and water lubrication

The tribological behavior of micro- and nano-crystalline diamond films is evaluated in dry sliding and water lubricating condition. The main wear mechanism is found to be abrasive wear mode induced by self-polishing. Non-diamond components and higher compressive residual stresses are detected in flat MCD films after dry sliding, in comparison to NCD. Origin of decreased friction coefficient in CVD diamond tribosystems under water lubrication is attributed to the effect of water on the formed graphic material and the chemisorbing of diamond surface with H₂O, hydrogen or hydroxyl ions. For the MCD/NCD or NCD/MCD contact, the surface roughness of ball largely determines the stable friction coefficient in dry sliding, where NCD film usually presents higher wear rate.     

Sliding behavior of dual phase steels in vacuum and in air

While the importance of fatigue failure is well established in rolling systems, the evidence for a correlation of fatigue with sliding wear is less convincing. McEvily has reported striking differences in the fatigue properties of two dual phase steels, one containing martensite islands in a ferrite matrix (type A) and one containing ferrite islands in a martensite matrix (type B). We have examined the sliding behavior of these same materials in vacuum and in air for various sliding distances. The pin-on-disk tests included self-mated pairs and tests with molybdenum as a counterface. Post-test analysis included the use of microhardness testing, scanning electron microscopy (including local chemical analysis) and X-ray diffraction analysis of the wear surfaces, sample cross-sections and wear debris. Transitions from low to high friction were associated with transfer processes and mechanical mixing. The wear rates of the type A and B samples were similar in vacuum. However, in air, the wear rates of the type B samples were increased by about 100 times. The lack of correlation with fatigue properties is not yet understood. Any of the following could be responsible: short crack (initiation) phenomena; large local stress intensities; surface material associated with transfer.     

The surface failure of fluorapatite single crystals

Single crystals of various material are used for basic studies of friction and wear because of their simplicity. Single pass sliding enables one to sort out the effects influencing wear such as anisotropy and environment. A review of the literature is given for studies with metallic single crystals, diamond, magnesium oxide, and sapphire. Results are presented for studies on fluorapatite single crystals. Frictional anisotropy was found to be similar to that in MgO single crystals even though fluorapatite and MgO have different lattice structures. A new finding is the fact that repeated sliding at contact stress states above a threshold value causes catastrophic surface damage after the second pass even though very little damage appeared on the first pass. Most previous studies report the results of single passes. In practical sliding systems where repeated sliding is always occurring, wear of brittle materials must be dominated by the catastrophic mechanisms found on the second pass rather than by the events that occurred during the first pass.     

用表面活化技术提高金刚石与镀层的结合性能

分别用活化处理和未活化处理的金刚石磨粒制备了电镀金刚石工具,通过扫描电子显微镜观察金刚石与镀层的结合状况。对氧化铝陶瓷材料进行钻削加工,对比电镀金刚石钻头在耐用度期间的陶瓷材料去除体积。结果表明,经活化处理的金刚石表面沉积分散的钯质点,工具电镀过程中,在金刚石与镀层间的结合面上形成分散的连接点。应用表面活化技术制作电镀金刚石工具,可使金刚石与镀层形成牢固连接,改善镀层与金刚石的结合性能,其氧化铝陶瓷材料去除体积是未经活化处理金刚石电镀钻头的1.5倍,明显提高了电镀金刚石工具的磨削性能和使用寿命。     

A Wear Model of Plane Sliding Pairs Based on Fatigue Contact Analysis of Asperities

Wear modeling is essential to predict and improve wear resistance of machine parts. This article presents a fatigue wear model of plane sliding pairs under dry friction. The wear model is constructed through developing a dynamic contact model of surfaces and proposing a mean fatigue damage constant of asperities. It is simpler and more practical than existing fatigue wear models because it describes the quantitative relationship between the wear behaviors of the plane sliding pairs and the main factors including the load and sliding speed, material property, friction property, and surface topography of the pairs. Furthermore, the wear model can predict the wear of each component of the sliding pairs. Reasonability and applicability of the wear model are validated via pin-on-disc wear tests. The wear model is applicable to predict the wear of the plane sliding pairs, which is characterized by friction fatigue of contact surfaces. The wear model can also be used to guide the tribological design of sliding pairs in machinery.     

多层U形波纹管的疲劳寿命有限元分析

应用非线性有限元法,综合考虑几何非线性、材料非线性和边界非线性等因素,采用平面轴对称单元和柔性的面-面接触对,建立了多层U形波纹管的非线性有限元模型,较好地解决了层间的接触问题.借助ANSYS软件对多层波纹管在轴向载荷与内压组合作用下的应力分布规律进行了探讨,利用结构的局部应力应变状态对波纹管的疲劳寿命进行了预测,同时考虑了波纹管的层数、壁厚减薄效应以及内压大小对于计算结果的影响,为波纹管的疲劳设计提供了依据.     

Study on solid lubricant properties of carbon onions produced by heat treatment of diamond clusters or particles

Tribological properties of carbon onions prepared by heat treatment of diamond clusters or particles are presented. Diamond clusters used as the source material are heated with an infrared radiation furnace to 1730 °C in argon at atmospheric pressure. As a result of heating at 1730 °C for 1 min, diamond clusters are transformed into carbon onions. High resolution TEM observation is employed to confirm the formation of carbon onions that have near-spherical and multi-layered concentric structure. The particle size of these carbon onions ranges from 5 to 10 nm that corresponds to the original size of the diamond clusters. This preparation technique is also applied to diamond particles less than 0.5 μm in diameter to produce larger carbon onions. Tribological properties of the carbon onions are examined by ball-on-disc type friction testing using a silicon wafer and a steel ball. Carbon onions, which are spread on the silicon wafer without adhesive, exhibit stable friction coefficients lower than 0.1 both in air and in vacuum at room temperature. The wear rates of steel balls sliding on the silicon wafer on which carbon onions are distributed are much lower than wear rates for sliding on a wafer over which graphite powder is spread. Moreover, it is found that the larger carbon onions prepared from diamond particles show low friction property on the rough surface of silicon discs.     

Fatigue wear: A contribution to the wear phenomena of ion-plated thin metallic films

A wear model based on the fatigue failure of asperities on ion-plated surfaces is presented. It is suitable for ion-plated hard substrates sliding against hard counterfaces where asperity penetrations do not occur. The constants specific to the analysis are evaluated. A wear equation which is dependent on the mechanical properties of the system, the surface topography and the operating conditions is obtained. The wear rates are expressed as functions of the normal load, the sliding speed, the track width, the standard deviation of the surface asperities, the mean radius of the asperities, the stiffness of the asperities and the static yield strength of the multilayered material.     

Tribological phenomena in steel-composite brake material friction pairs

The mechanism of the formation of iron layers on brake friction materials sliding over a steel surface has been investigated. The nature of the metallization of friction material specimens and the changes in the surfaces as a result of sliding were studied by optical and scanning electron microscopy, electron probe microanalysis, X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, gas Chromatographic analysis and microhardness measurements. A mechanism for the metallization of friction linings (iron layer formation) is proposed. Models of a tribological system for a frictional brake and of the subsurface layers of composite brake materials are described.     

Wear of dental enamel

Teeth wear for a number of reasons. One of the causes for wear is the use of abrasive tooth pastes. A study is reported in which enamel was damaged by single pass sliding of a diamond indenter. In single crystals of fluorapatite, wear occurs by flaking out of chips of material and severely fractured substrate is left behind. On the other hand teeth are made of small rods of polycrystalline hydroxyapatite of the order of 5 μm in diameter oriented perpendicular to the tooth surface. This rod structure of human teeth prevents large scale flaking out of material. Apparently the subsurface cracks do not extend from one rod to the other so that subsequent passes do not result in severe wear. Small abrasive particles may do considerable damage to rods, but the overall effect is small. Large abrasive particles with high loads cause separation of rods, and cracks appear to propagate but without severe permanent damage.     

Formation and Oxidation of Linear Carbon Chains and Their Role in the Wear of Carbon Materials

The atomic-scale processes taking place during the sliding of diamond and diamond-like carbon surfaces are investigated using classical molecular dynamics simulations. During the initial sliding stage, diamond surfaces undergo an amorphization process, while an sp ³ to sp ² conversion takes place in tetrahedral amorphous carbon (ta-C) and amorphous hydrocarbon (a-C:H) surface layers. Upon separation of the sliding samples, the interface fails. A rather smooth failure occurs for a-C:H, where the hydrogen atoms present in the bulk passivate the chemically active carbon dangling bonds. Conversely, sp-hybridized carbon chains are observed to form on diamond and ta-C surfaces. These carbynoid structures are known to undergo a fast degradation process when in contact with oxygen. Using quantum-accurate density functional theory simulations, we present a possible mechanism for the oxygen-induced degradation of the carbon chains, leading to oxidative wear of the sp phase on diamond and ta-C surfaces upon exposure to air. Oxygen molecules chemisorb on C–C bonds of the chains, triggering the cleavage of the chains through concerted O–O and C–C bond-breaking reactions. A similar reaction caused by adsorption of water molecules on the carbon chains is ruled out on energetic grounds. Further O₂ adsorption causes the progressive shortening of the resulting, O-terminated, chain fragments through the same O–O and C–C bond breaking mechanism accompanied by the formation of CO₂ molecules.     

Rippling on Wear Scar Surfaces of Nanocrystalline Diamond Films After Reciprocating Sliding Against Ceramic Balls

The formation of nanoscopic ripple patterns on top of material surfaces has been reported for different materials and processes, such as sliding against polymers, high-force scanning in atomic force microscopy (AFM), and surface treatment by ion beam sputtering. In this work, we show that such periodic ripples can also be obtained in prolonged reciprocating sliding against nanocrystalline diamond (NCD) films. NCD films with a thickness of 0.8 µm were grown on top of silicon wafer substrates by hot-filament chemical vapor deposition using a mixture of methane and hydrogen. The chemical structure, surface morphology, and surface wear were characterized by Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and AFM. The tribological properties of the NCD films were evaluated by reciprocating sliding tests against Al₂O₃, Si₃N₄, and ZrO₂ counter balls. Independent of the counter body material, clear ripple patterns with typical heights of about 30 nm induced during the sliding test are observed by means of AFM and SEM on the NCD wear scar surfaces. Although the underlying mechanisms of ripple formation are not yet fully understood, these surface corrugations could be attributed to the different wear phenomena, including a stress-induced micro-fracture and plastic deformation, a surface smoothening, and a surface rehybridization from diamond bonding to an sp ² configuration. The similarity between ripples observed in the present study and ripples reported after repeated AFM tip scanning indicates that ripple formation is a rather universal phenomenon occurring in moving tribological contacts of different materials.     

Effect of crystal structure on the tribological properties of diamond coatings on hard-alloy cutting tools

Micro- and nanocrystalline uniform diamond coatings with barrier tungsten layers for improved adhesion were deposited in a microwave plasma from methane-hydrogen mixtures on cemented carbide WC–6% Co substrates with high aspect ratios. Dynamic study of cutting forces and sliding friction has shown a significant improvement in the tribological properties of diamond-coated tools in cutting highly abrasive materials, such as A390 silumin and carbon-carbon composites. Confocal Raman spectrometry has been used to examine the features of wear mechanism in nano- and microcrystalline diamond coatings deposited in a microwave plasma.     

Tribological behaviour of diamond coatings sliding against Al alloys

A low wear rate, combined with exceptional physical properties, makes diamond an ideal candidate for the machining of non-ferrous materials. It is particularly interesting for tooling aluminium and its alloys as it offers these soft materials clean cutting and lets the shavings slide on the tool surface.It results from studies dealing with the friction of diamond against aluminium, that the tribological behaviour of this pair is greatly influenced by the presence of oxides, more particularly Al₂O₃, on the counterface surface. It was therefore necessary to better understand the role of these oxides during the cutting process, the way they modify the nature of the contact, and their effects on transferred layer formation.The tribological behaviour of diamond coatings prepared by the combustion flame process, sliding against aluminium alloys under different environments (vacuum, oxygen and water vapour), at two applied normal loads is presented here; the modifications of both the coatings (formation of amorphous carbon) and the counterfaces (depth of the friction track), as well as the transferred layers (chemical composition, aspect) are specifically studied.The surface changes are revealed by scanning electron microscopy observations. Raman spectroscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy analyses were realised to highlight the observed phenomena.     

Research of the mechanism and development of the wear model of a diamond tool when turning aluminum-matrix composite materials

The results of a study of the wear mechanism of diamond tools for turning aluminum-matrix composite materials (ACMs) hardened by Al₂O₃, SiC, and B₄C particles are presented. The study of the posterior surface topography of a diamond tool (ASPK-2) shows the presence of parallel scratches in the direction of the vector of the cutting speed; it is characteristic of abrasive wear fatigue. Research on the mass-transfer of the elements of the tool material into the chips of the treated material is carried out; it shows the presence of particles of the tool material of a size comparable to the ACM filler microparticles. The model of the abrasive-wear fatigue of a diamond tool during the turning of ACMs, considering the power of the impact of the reinforcement particles, the hardness of the tool depending on the temperature in the cutting zone, the abrasiveness, and the mass fraction of the dispersed particles reinforcing the matrix and tool geometry is proposed.