530.

352 Materials Selection

Lecture #30 Friction and Wear Monday November 28th, 2005

Frictional forces :

waste power

reduce tolerances
lead to failures

Friction and wear (good / bad) :

Brake rotors / shoe soles

maximize friction / minimize wear

Polishing / chalk blackboards

minimize friction / maximize wear

Friction forces (a la Physics I):

Fs = s P P
Fk = k P

Fs

s = coefficient of
static friction

k = coefficient of
kinetic friction

Work done in sliding against kinetic friction appears as heat

Surprising relation ??

How is it that the friction force does not depend on area ???

Surface topography :
micro-asperities determine contact area

Fs

P Normal pressure P/A is very large y = P / A A = P / y

Fs Shear stresses Fs/ A > y y ~ y / 2 Fs ~ P / 2

Coefficients of friction :
Static
theoretical s ~ 1/2
must break atomic level bonds

Kinetic
k < s
less time for atom-atom bonding

Pin-on-disk tribometry :
In pin-on-disk tribometry, a flat or a sphere shaped indenter ("pin") is loaded on to the test sample ("disk") with a precisely known weight. The pin is mounted on a stiff lever, designed as a frictionless force transducer. As the disk is rotated, resulting frictional forces acting between the pin and the disk are measured by very small deflections of the lever. Wear coefficients for both the pin and material are calculated from the volume of the material lost during a specific friction run. This simple method facilitates the determination and study of friction and wear behavior of almost every solid state material combination, with varying time, contact pressure, velocity, temperature, humidity, lubricants, etc.

Tribometer :
Advanced Mechanical Surface Testing: Pin-on-Disk Tribometer
The control of friction and wear in moving machine parts is a critical issue facing the manufacturing industry. It is important to have comparable analysis data obtained over a period of years, at varying humidity and temperature and in the presence of lubricants. CSEM tribometers have proven their reliability worldwide in over 100 laboratories, for studying: New materials (ceramics, metals,polymers) Lubricants and oil additives Self-lubricating systems Quality assurance.

http://www.csem.ch/instrum/

High T tribometer:

Advanced Mechanical Surface Testing: High-Temperature Tribometer

For reasons of security and energy conservation, the analysis of friction and wear properties of materials at elevated temperatures is becoming increasingly important, especially for the development and quality control of combustion engines and power plants. To meet the resulting demand of instrumentation, CSEM Instruments has extended its range of pin-on-disk tribometers with a powerful high-temperature version.

Micro-scratch tester :
Advanced Mechanical Surface Testing: Micro-Scratch Tester
The MST-CSEMEX(r) Micro-Scratch-Tester is widely applied to characterize practical adhesion failure of thin films and coatings, with a typical thickness below 3 m. The MST-CSEMEX(r) is used in the analysis of organic and inorganic soft and hard coatings. Examples are thin and multilayer PVD, CVD, PECVD, photoresist, paints lacquers, and many other types of films, covering optical, micro- electronic, protective, decorative and other applications. Substrates can be hard or soft, including metal alloys, semiconductors, glass, refractive and organic materials.

Coefficients of friction :
metal-metal

Pure clean metals seize ~ 5 Oxide films prevent seizure reduce soft metal films with hard metal backing have lower value of ~ 0.1-0.2

s > 1/2

ceramic-ceramic
k <
harder - less deformation stable - less bonding

Coefficients of friction :
metal-polymer

s is high
creep allows metal to settle into soft polymer

k is low ~0.05
polymer molecules bond to metallic surface, but peel off easily

Wear
Adhesive wear
If A adheres to B and B is softer than A then B wears away rate depends on area and normal force (P)
reduce pressure (ie. chalk on blackboard) increase hardness (ie. #2 pencil)

Abrasive wear
hard oxide or dirt particles act as sand paper

Lubrication :
oils, greases, and fatty materials (soap)

Minimize frictional forces by:

preventing atom-atom bonding
must be able to withstand high pressures

reducing required shear stresses

must be able to shear itself

Boundary lubrication :
Active organic molecules (~1%)
attach to metal-oxide surface
molecules hold surfaces apart

Hydrodynamic lubrication :
Well-lubricated journal bearing
load pushes it off-center

viscous lubricant
drug around shaft

shear of oil
k ~ 0.001-0.005

CS 1: design of journal bearings:

Real bearings contain dirt
silica or cast iron dust from machining If particles > gap then wear results

Solutions:
case harden surfaces
dirt is abraded

soften surfaces
dirt is captured

Case study 2 - Snow skis

Until recently -- most skis made of waxed wood Polar explorers have reported:
Below 0 F (-18 C) the friction on the sled runners seemed to increase progressively as the temperature fell

Experimentally measured that:

0. 5 Waxed wood

0. k 4 0. 3

PTFE (teflon)
-10 -20 -30 C

0. 2 0
0.

How skis work :

Skis glide on a layer of water
Melting point of ice drops with pressure
T < 0.1 C , ie. not a big enough effect

heat generated on sliding surfaces

film of water lubricates ski on snow

T < -10 C, the heat is conducted away

especially at metal edges (k ~ 0.4)

Polymers naturally much better skis

k ~ 0.04