Friction, wear and elasto-plastic stress analysis of rf-sputtered carbon-nitrogen protective coatings for rigid magnetic storage disks

Thin carbon protective coatings were deposited on rigid magnetic disks by rf diode sputtering using a mixture of argon and nitrogen gases. A continuous drag test with thin-film head sliders was used to evaluate the performance of carbon coatings. Results significantly show that the carbon-nitrogen coatings have better wear performance than pure argon-sputtered carbon coatings. In addition, an elasto-plastic analysis of the stress distribution strongly indicates that wear damage should more readily occur in carbon overcoats containing large graphite particles and that a durable carbon coating should have a higher percentage of sp³ bonding.     

Friction and Wear of Polyphenylene Sulfide (PPS), Polyethersulfone (PES) and Polysulfone (PSU) Under Different Cooling Conditions

The friction and wear properties of polyphenylene sulfide (PPS), polyethersulfone (PES) and polysulfone (PSU), which have similar molecular structure, were investigated using an end-face contact tribometer in three different cooling ways: sliding without air cooling, sliding with air cooling, and sliding in water. The worn surface and wear debris were observed using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The effect of frictional heat on the tribological properties of the polymers was comparatively studied. When sliding in air, with increasing applied load, the wear rate of PPS decreased slightly initially then increased later while the wear rate of PES and PSU increased through out. The results suggested that the friction coefficient was mainly affected by the temperature of the worn polymer that was controlled by the balance of heat flow of the whole sliding contact system. When sliding in water, the friction coefficients of the three polymers decreased compared to that sliding in air and remained relatively steady through the whole process under different load. The wear rates of the three polymers had a close value and, remarkably, increased compared to that sliding in air. The water cooling and lubrication role decreased the tribological properties difference between the polymers.     

Atomistic wear in a single asperity sliding contact

Abrasive wear of sharp silicon tips sliding distances of up to 750 m on a polymeric surface is studied using atomic force microscopy. The data cannot be explained by conventional macroscopic wear models. We present a new model in which the barrier for breaking an atomic bond is lowered by the frictional stress acting on the contact. Quantitative agreement is obtained between the model and wear data for all load forces and sliding distances studied.     

Ultra-thin a-SiNx protective overcoats for hard disks and read/write heads

This paper reports that amorphous silicon nitride (a-SiNx) overcoats were deposited at room temperature by microwave ECR plasma enhanced unbalanced magnetron sputtering. The 2 nm a-SiNx overcoat has better anti-corrosion properties than that of reference a-CNx overcoats (2-4.5 nm). The superior anti-corrosion performance is attributed to its stoichiometric bond structure, where 94.8% Si atoms form Si-N asymmetric stretching vibration bonds. The N/Si ratio is 1.33 as in the stoichiometry of Si3N4 and corresponds to the highest hardness of 25.0 GPa. The surface is atomically smooth with RMS < 0.2 nm. The ultra-thin a-SiNx overcoats are promising for hard disks and read/write heads protective coatings.     

Friction and wear of a spherical indenter under influence of out-of-plane ultrasonic oscillations

This paper presents an experimental and theoretical investigation of friction and wear of a spherical indenter. With the pin-on-disc-tribometer the out-of-plane oscillations are applied to the sliding indenter. Oscillations lead to a decrease of the coefficient of friction, and this effect is also related to the sliding velocity and oscillation amplitude. During the sliding movement, the contact area of indenter increases due to the wear of material. This radius of the worn spherical cap is measured after each sliding period. It is found that the radius of the wear flat increases with sliding distance according to a power law with the power 1/4 and is independent of the sliding velocity. It further is practically insensitive to the presence of oscillations. A theoretical analysis and a numerical simulation based on the method of dimensionality reduction are carried out, both describing the experimental data very well.     

Vacuum current-carrying tribological behavior of MoS2-Ti films with different conductivities

Current-carrying sliding is widely applied in aerospace equipment, but it is limited by the poor lubricity of the present materials and the unclear tribological mechanism. This study demonstrated the potential of MoS₂-based materials with excellent lubricity as space sliding electrical contact materials by doping Ti to improve its conductivity. The tribological behavior of MoS₂-Ti films under current-carrying sliding in vacuum was studied by establishing a simulation evaluating device. Moreover, the noncurrent-carrying sliding and static current-carrying experiments in vacuum were carried out for comparison to understand the tribological mechanism. In addition to mechanical wear, the current-induced arc erosion and thermal effect take important roles in accelerating the wear. Arc erosion is caused by the accumulation of electric charge, which is related to the conductivity of the film. While the current-thermal effect softens the film, causing strong adhesive wear, and good conductivity and the large contact area are beneficial for minimizing the thermal effect. So the moderate hardness and good conductivity of MoS₂-Ti film contribute to its excellent current-carrying tribological behavior in vacuum, showing a significant advantage compared with the traditional ones.     

Dry sliding tribological behavior of AZ31 magnesium alloy irradiated by high-intensity pulsed ion beam

The dry sliding tribological behavior of AZ31 magnesium alloy irradiated by high-intensity pulsed ion beam (HIPIB) at energy density of 3.4 J/cm² with 10 shots is investigated by dry sliding wear tests in order to explore the effect of HIPIB irradiation on tribological property of magnesium alloy. Surface morphologies, composition and structure of the irradiated AZ31 magnesium alloys are examined by electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The results indicated that HIPIB irradiation led to the increase in surface microhardness and the reduction in friction coefficient and wear rate. Wear rate for both the original and the irradiated samples increased with increasing sliding load from 0.1 to 0.5 N. The transition from severe metallic wear to mild oxidative wear induced by HIPIB irradiation was observed by a combined analysis in surface morphology and chemical composition of wear tracks, mechanically mixed materials and wear debris, which is mainly attributed to the significant increase in microhardness resulting from grain refinement on the irradiated surface. In addition, defects induced by HIPIB irradiation promoted the diffusion of oxygen during sliding wear and therefore led to the formation of compact mixed materials and protective films on the wear tracks surface, which also contributes to the transition in wear mechanism of AZ31 magnesium alloy induced by HIPIB irradiation.     

Wear of a stainless steel in pressurised high temperature water

The wear behaviour of an austenitic stainless steel is analysed using a tribometer working in pressurised high temperature water (PHTW). The precise contact conditions, low pressure impact and sliding contacts, play an important role on the surface wear in this corrosive medium. The tests which include both impact and sliding are the most severe. The friction films formed during these tests are compared with those obtained with pure oxidation. It is shown that these films participate in the formation of elongated ‘indents’ observed on the surfaces. Nano-indentation measurements consolidate this hypothesis.     

Dry sliding wear characteristics of in situ synthesized Al-TiC composites

Abstract

Aluminum-based composites containing 0.06, 0.09, 0.12 fractions of in situ-synthesized TiC (Titanium carbide) particles have been prepared through in-melt reaction from Ai–SiC–Ti system following a simple and cost-effective stir-casting route. The TiC forms by the reaction of Ti with carbon which is released by SiC at temperatures greater than 1073 K. However, some amount of titanium aluminide (Al₃Ti) is also formed. The formation of TiC has been confirmed through X-ray diffraction studies of the composite. The hardness and tensile strength have been found to increase with increasing amount of TiC. The friction and wear characteristics of the composites have been determined by carrying out dry sliding tests on pin-on-disc machine at different loads of 9.8 N, 19.6 N, 29.4 N, 39.2 N at a constant sliding speed of the 1 m/s speed. The wear rate i.e. volume loss per unit sliding distance has been found to increase linearly with increasing load following Archard’s law. However, both the wear rate and friction coefficient have been observed to decrease with increasing amount of TiC in the composite. This has been attributed to (i) a relatively higher hardness of composites containing relatively higher amount of TiC resulting in a relatively lower real area of contact and (ii) the formation of a well-compacted mechanically mixed layer of compacted wear debris on the worn surface which might have inhibited metal–metal contact and resulted in a lower wear rate as well as friction coefficient.     

Effect of the phase composition of steel-based composites on the electrical resistance of the friction zone under conditions of current collection

The current-voltage diagram of the electric contact zone and the wear rate of sintered composites based on ball-bearing wastes steel (1.5% Cr) and Hadfield steel (13% Mn) at sliding over quenched steel (0.45% C) are investigated with tin and lead incorporated in the friction zone. It is established that melting is accompanied by a significant decrease in the electrical resistance which causes the nonlinearity of the current-voltage diagram of the contact. An increase in the strength of the contact layers manifested through the increased wear resistance is simultaneously observed. Based on the Ohm law, it is qualitatively demonstrated that the nonlinearity is caused by the change of the true area of electrical contact. Results of analogous experiments for composites that do not contain lead or tin are presented. It is established that the electrical conductivity and the strength of the surface layer sharply decrease for such change of the phase composition.     

Simplified simulation of fretting wear using the method of dimensionality reduction

We study the problem of wear of a rotationally symmetric profile subjected to oscillations with small amplitude. Under these conditions, sliding occurs at the boundary of the contact area while the inner parts of the contact area may still stick. In a recent paper, Dimaki with colleagues proposed a numerically exact simulation procedure based on the method of dimensionality reduction (MDR). This drastically reduced the simulation time compared with conventional finite element simulations. The proposed simulation procedure requires carrying out the direct and the inverse MDR transformations in each time step. This is the main time consuming operation in the proposed method. However, solutions obtained with this method showed a remarkable simplicity of the development of wear profiles in the MDR space. In the present paper, we utilize these results to formulate an approximate model, in which the wear is simulated directly in the one-dimensional space without using integral transformations. This speeds up the simulations of wear by further several orders of magnitude.     

Subsurface deformation studies of aluminium during wear and its theoretical understanding using molecular dynamics

Adopting the bonded interface technique for wear experiments under vacuum, this paper reports the nature of the localised shear bands that appear at the different deformation zones of the subsurface of aluminium under different sliding conditions. The plastic deformations are mapped under both low load/low sliding velocities as well as high load and high sliding velocities. A monotonic change in local plastic strain as a function of depth at low sliding velocities give way to a discontinuity separating two different zones with differing plastic behaviour for high sliding speed wear test. Besides shear bands, bonded interface also reveals the presence of kinks particularly in the samples subjected to wear test with high sliding velocities. A molecular dynamic simulation of the wear process successfully replicated the experimental observation, thus allowing us to discuss the mechanism of subsurface deformation during the wear process in the absence of any significant oxide layer for aluminium under sliding condition.     

Tribological Properties of Surface-Modified Graphene Filled Carbon Fabric/Polyimide Composites

To improve the wear resistance of carbon fabric reinforced polyimide (CF/PI) composite, surface-modified graphene (MG) was synthesized and employed as a filler. The flexural strength, Rockwell hardness and thermal properties of the composites were tested. The composites were also evaluated for their tribological properties in a ring-on-block contact mode under dry sliding conditions. The results showed that the wear rate of MG reinforced CF/PI composites was reduced when compared to unfilled CF/PI composite. It was found that the 1?wt% MG filled CF/PI composites exhibited the optimal tribological properties. The worn surface, wear debris and transfer films were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and optical microscopy (OM) with the results helping to characterize the wear mechanism.     

Studies on dry sliding wear behaviour of functionally graded graphite particle-filled glass-epoxy composites

The dry sliding wear characteristics of glass-epoxy (G-E), graphite-filled G-E and functionally graded graphite-filled G-E composites were investigated using pin-on-disc test rig. The specific wear rate was determined as a function of applied load, sliding velocity and sliding distance. The results revealed that the specific wear rate increases in all the tested composites with increasing wear parameter. But, the admirable wear resistance was obtained with functionally graded graphite-filled G-E composite. The scanning electron microscope studies of worn-out surfaces support the involved wear mechanisms and are well indicated in the worn-out surface features such as matrix wear, fibre exposure, fibre breakage, fibre and matrix deboning, microcracking, debris formation, fibre cracking and removal of fibres.     

Studies on wettability, mechanical and tribological properties of the polyurethane composites filled with talc

A series of polyurethane (PU)/talc composites modified by a high molecular weight hydroxyl-terminated polydimethylsiloxane (HTPDMS) were prepared. The effect of the talc content on the mechanical, wettability and tribological properties of the PU composites was studied. Tensile strength of the PU composites reached to the maximum after adding 5% talc. The water contact angles (CA) of the original surfaces and worn surfaces of the polyurethane composites were measured. The experimental results indicated that the contact angles of the worn surface increased after friction. The friction and wear experiments were tested on a MRH-3 model ring-on-block test rig at different sliding speeds and loads under dry sliding and water lubrication. Experimental results revealed that the talc contributed to largely improve the tribological properties of the PU composites. The coefficient of friction (COF) of the composites increased with increasing talc. Scanning electron microscopic (SEM) investigations showed that the worn surfaces of the talc filled PU composites were smoother than pure polyurethane under given load and sliding speed.     

Correlation between the wear resistance of Cu-Ni alloy and its electron work function

This article reports our studies on the performance of isomorphous Cu–Ni alloy during sliding and erosive wear processes with attempt to correlate its wear behaviour with the electron work function (EWF). EWF, mechanical behaviour and wear resistance of the Cu–Ni alloy with respect to the concentration of Ni were measured using ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy, micro-indenter, pin-on-disc and air-jet testers, respectively. It was demonstrated that EWF, hardness and Young’s modulus of the alloy increased as the concentration of Ni increased. During solid-particle erosion tests, the wear resistance of the alloy was enhanced with an increase in the Ni concentration, corresponding to an increase in EWF. However, an opposite trend was observed during sliding wear tests, which was ascribed to the formation of oxide scale that affected the sliding wear resistance.     

Microtribological study of perfluoropolyether with different functional groups coated on hydrogen terminated Si

Friction and wear properties of different perfluoropolyether (PFPE) films with and without hydrogen termination on Si (Si-H) were studied using a ball-on-disk tribometer. The physical and chemical properties of the films were evaluated using contact angle measurement, atomic force microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Coating of PFPEs onto bare Si has lowered the coefficient of friction (from 0.6 for Si to ∼0.05 with PFPE) and enhanced the wear durability (20,000 times) in comparison with those for bare Si which failed immediately. The introduction of hydrogen termination onto Si prior to PFPE coating has further increased the wear durability of PFPE with different functional groups several times (>5 times) under a normal load of 30 mN and a sliding speed of 0.052 m/s.     

Friction and Wear Behaviors of Surface-Modified Carbon Fabric/Epoxy Resin Composites

Carbon fabric (CF) was pretreated by air-plasma bombardment and then further modified by deposition of polydopamine on the surface of the pretreated CF. Epoxy resin composites reinforced by unmodified or surface-modified carbon fabric were fabricated. The friction and wear behaviors of the resulting composites were evaluated in a ring-on-block contact mode. The flexural strength and Rockwell hardness of the composites were also evaluated. The morphologies of the worn surfaces of the unmodified and modified composites were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy. The surface treatment increased the surface roughness and changed the surface topography of the CF, which contributed to enhancing the interfacial adhesion of the composites and thus improved the mechanical properties and tribo-performance. The friction and wear properties of both the unfilled and filled composites were highly dependent on the load and sliding velocity. Moreover, the results were supplemented with scanning electron micrographs to help understand the possible wear mechanisms.     

Controlling wear failure of graphite-like carbon film in aqueous environment: Two feasible approaches

Friction and wear behaviors of graphite-like carbon (GLC) films in aqueous environment were investigated by a reciprocating sliding tribo-meter with ball-on-disc contact. Film structures and wear scars were studied by scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and a non-contact 3D surface profiler. A comprehensive wear model of the GLC film in aqueous environment was established, and two feasible approaches to control critical factor to the corresponding wear failure were discussed. Results showed that wear loss of GLC films in aqueous environment was characterized by micro-plough and local delamination. Due to the significant material loss, local delamination of films was critical to wear failure of GLC film in aqueous environment if the film was not prepared properly. The initiation and propagation of micro-cracks within whole films closely related to the occurrence of the films delamination from the interface between interlayer and substrate. The increase of film density by adjusting the deposition condition would significantly reduce the film delamination from substrate, meanwhile, fabricating a proper interlayer between substrate and GLC films to prevent the penetration of water molecules into the interface between interlayer and substrate could effectively eliminate the delamination.     

Comparative Study of Tribological Properties of Polyphenylene Sulfide (PPS), Polyethersulfone (PES), and Polysulfone (PSU)

The tribological properties of polyphenylene sulfide (PPS), polyethersulfone (PES) and polysulfone (PSU), which have similar molecular structures, were investigated using an end-face contact tribometer and a reciprocating tribometer. The thermomechanical behavior of the polymers was analyzed using dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). PPS exhibited a maximum friction coefficient with increasing load and sliding speed, while the friction coefficients of PES and PSU decreased only slightly. The wear rate of PPS was much lower than that of PES and PSU under high loads and speeds. It is suggested that the main factors influencing the friction and wear properties of the neat polymers are their condensed state and heat resistance. Amorphous PES and PSU showed liquid-like behavior and very low friction when the frictional surface was in the molten-flow state. The macromolecular crystals of crystallizable PPS give it some solid-like behavior and load-carrying capacity; hence PPS exhibited lower wear than PES and PSU.