Materials sliding wear model based on energy dissipation

A mathematical model is developed to correlate the volumetric wear of materials with the dissipation energy in sliding contacts. In the analysis, the wear of contacting materials originating from the energy loss due to friction process in the contact is studied. Two mechanisms responsible for energy loss at contact are considered. The first is the amount of energy spent to import plastic deformation and the second is the elastic energy of the particulate. The energy loss due to elastic and plastic deformation is calculated. The statistical loss of energy is calculated for two rough surfaces by the assumption that there is negligible change in the statistical parameters of the surface during wear. The model can be useful to predict the service lifetime of components and eventually structures. The results showed that the amount of dissipated energy and the volumetric loss increased with increasing normal load. Also, changing the normal load changed the rate of energy dissipation per unit sliding distance.