Nanotribological behavior of diamond surfaces using molecular dynamics with fractal theory and experiments

The frictional and indented behavior of a diamond asperity on a diamond plate was carried out using a molecular dynamics (MD) and experiments. The contact load, contact area, dynamic frictional force, and dynamic frictional coefficient increased as the contact interference increased at a constant loading velocity. The microcontact and frictional behavior can be evaluated between a rigid smooth hemisphere to a deformable rough flat plane by combined the deformed behavior of the asperity obtained from MD results with the fractal and statistic parameters. The comparison and the discrepancy of simulated results and nanoindentation and scratching experimental results will be discussed.     

Nonlinear shear wave interaction at a frictional interface: energy dissipation and generation of harmonics

Analytical and numerical modeling of the nonlinear interaction of shear wave with a frictional interface is presented. The system studied is composed of two homogeneous and isotropic elastic solids, brought into frictional contact by remote normal compression. A shear wave, either time harmonic or a narrow band pulse, is incident normal to the interface and propagates through the contact. Two friction laws are considered and the influence on interface behavior is investigated: Coulomb's law with a constant friction coefficient and a slip-weakening friction law which involves static and dynamic friction coefficients. The relationship between the nonlinear harmonics and the dissipated energy, and the dependence on the contact dynamics (friction law, sliding, and tangential stress) and on the normal contact stress are examined in detail. The analytical and numerical results indicate universal type laws for the amplitude of the higher harmonics and for the dissipated energy, properly non-dimensionalized in terms of the pre-stress, the friction coefficient and the incident amplitude. The results suggest that measurements of higher harmonics can be used to quantify friction and dissipation effects of a sliding interface.     

Relaxation damping in contacts under superimposed normal and torsional oscillation

It was recently shown that if a contact of two purely elastic bodies with no sliding is subjected to oscillations in normal and tangential directions, a kind of damping occurs due to relaxation of tangential stress in areas of intermittent contact, despite the absence of sliding and corresponding frictional work. In the present paper we show that the same mechanism acts in contacts with superimposed normal and torsional oscillations. A closed-form solution for the torsional and combined (torsional/tangential) relaxation dissipation for a contact of arbitrary bodies of revolution is presented.     

Modeling of frictional interaction of a rough indenter and a two-layer elastic half-space

The paper considers frictional interaction of a rough indenter and a two-layer elastic half-space with resort to a periodic contact problem from which the additional displacement due to microirregularities is determined. The effect of the contact density on contact characteristics and internal stresses is studied for relatively hard and relatively soft coatings.     

Frictional shakedown and ratcheting of an oscillating cylindrical,elastic contact with coulomb friction

We examine frictional shakedown of an elastic contact of a cylinder pressed on a flat substrate. Slight oscillatory rolling of the cylinder varies the pressure distribution and the contact region. Together with the tangential load, this rocking motion causes incremental sliding processes and a macroscopic rigid body motion. In case that the oscillation amplitude is sufficiently small, the slip ceases after the first few periods and a safe shakedown occurs: the residual force in the contact withstands the tangential load. Otherwise ratcheting occurs: one side of the contact alternately sticks, while the other slips. This leads to a continuing rigid body motion. By derivation of the tangential stress distribution and use of the Boussinesq and Cerruti potential functions, we find approximations for the shakedown limits for the tangential load and the oscillation amplitude. This allows the accurate prediction of the displacement and the reduced tangential load capacity in the shakedown state. The results show strong agreement with numerical and experimental data.     

Dynamics of precursors to frictional sliding

We measure the spatial and temporal behavior of the true contact area A along a rough spatially extended interface between two blocks in frictional contact. Upon the application of shear the onset of motion is preceded by a discrete sequence of cracklike precursors, which are initiated at shear levels that are well below the threshold for static friction. These precursors arrest well before traversing the entire interface. They systematically increase in length with the applied shear force and significantly redistribute the true contact area along the interface. Thus, when frictional sliding occurs, the initially uniform contact area along the interface has already evolved to one that is highly nonuniform in space.     

The numerical method for three-dimensional impact with friction of multi-rigid-body system

The differential equations for planar impacts reduce to an algebraic form, and can be easily solved. For three dimensional impacts with friction, there is no closed-form solution, and numerical integration is required due to the swerve behavior of tangential impulse during collisions. The dynamic governing equations in the impact process are built up in impulse space based on the Lagrangian equation in this paper. The coefficient of restitution defined by Poisson is used as the condition of impact termination. A valid numerical method for solving three-dimensional frictional impact of multi-rigid body system is established. The singular cases of tangential movement in sticking point are especially noticed and analyzed. Several examples are present to reveal the different kinds of tangential movement modes varied with the normal impulse during collision.     

Simulation of frictional energy dissipation in a fiber contact subjected to normal and tangential oscillation

This paper presents a numerical study on the frictional contact between two crossed fibers subject to both normal and tangential oscillation. The results from simulation using the method of dimensionality reduction show that the frictional energy dissipation increases firstly with coefficient of friction, and then almost symmetrically decreases to a constant. The fiber aspect ratio has an important effect on the energy dissipation and this effect becomes more significant for larger coefficient of friction. The simulation results for very large coefficient of friction show a good agreement with the analytical solution for the case of infinite coefficient of friction.     

A model for the characterization of friction contacts in turbine blades

Stresses produced by the forced vibrations can lead to a significant reduction of the life of turbo engine blades. To predict the vibration amplitudes of this components an accurate dynamic analysis is necessary. The forced response calculation of these dynamic systems is strongly affected by the presence of the contact interfaces (i.e., underplatform dampers, shrouds, root joints). Different contact models are available in literature. These models make use of contact parameters, contact stiffness and friction coefficient to evaluate the damping and stiffness related to the contact interfaces. In this paper a model is proposed to characterize friction contact of non-spherical contact geometries obeying the Coulomb friction law with constant friction coefficient and constant normal load. The hysteresis curves of the oscillating tangential contact forces vs. relative tangential displacements and the dissipated energy at the contact are obtained for different contact geometries. The developed model is suitable to be implemented in numerical solvers for the calculation of the forced response of turbine blades with embedded friction contacts.     

Contact mechanics analysis of oscillatory sliding of a rigid fractal surface against an elastic–plastic half-space

Oscillatory sliding contact between a rigid rough surface and an elastic–plastic half-space is examined in the context of numerical simulations. Stick-slip at asperity contacts is included in the analysis in the form of a modified Mindlin theory. Two friction force components are considered – adhesion (depending on the real area of contact, shear strength and interfacial adhesive strength) and plowing (accounting for the deformation resistance of the plastically deformed half-space). Multi-scale surface roughness is described by fractal geometry, whereas the interfacial adhesive strength is represented by a floating parameter that varies between zero (adhesionless surfaces) and one (perfectly adhered surfaces). The effects of surface roughness, apparent contact pressure, oscillation amplitude, elastic–plastic properties of the half-space and interfacial adhesion on contact deformation are interpreted in the light of numerical results of the energy dissipation, maximum tangential (friction) force and slip index. A non-monotonic trend of the energy dissipation and maximum tangential force is observed with increasing surface roughness, which is explained in terms of the evolution of the elastic and plastic fractions of truncated asperity contact areas. The decrease of energy dissipation with increasing apparent contact pressure is attributed to the increase of the elastic contact area fraction and the decrease of the slip index. For a half-space with fixed yield strength, a lower elastic modulus produces a higher tangential force, whereas a higher elastic modulus yields a higher slip index. These two competing effects lead to a non-monotonic dependence of the energy dissipation on the elastic modulus-to-yield strength ratio of the half-space. The effect of interfacial adhesion on the oscillatory contact behaviour is more pronounced for smoother surfaces because the majority of asperity contacts deform elastically and adhesion is the dominant friction mechanism. For rough surfaces, higher interfacial adhesion yields less energy dissipation because more asperity contacts exhibit partial slip.     

Shakedown and induced microslip of an oscillating frictional contact

Using the method of reduction of dimensionality, we calculate the microslip motion of a tangentially loaded frictional contact between an elastic sphere and a rigid base. An oscillating rotation of the sphere with a small amplitude leads to a creep motion of the rigid base. Depending on the amplitude and the tangential force, two possible scenarios may occur. For oscillation amplitudes smaller than a critical value, the rigid body shakes down in the sense that the frictional slip ceases after a limited number of rotation cycles. Otherwise, the rigid base starts to slip with a constant mean velocity, which depends on the static displacement and the rotational amplitude.     

Influence of the alignment of load and oscillation on the frictional shakedown of an elastic rolling contact with Coulomb friction

We examine frictional shakedown of a three dimensional elastic rolling contact. Slight oscillatory rolling of one contacting body varies the normal pressure distribution. In turn this causes incremental sliding processes and a macroscopic rigid body motion. We consider two settings: tangential force and rolling direction aligned parallel and perpendicular to each other. In both cases, the slip ceases after the first few periods and a safe shakedown occurs if the oscillation is sufficiently small. Otherwise ratcheting occurs and the accumulated slip leads to a continuing rigid body motion.Numerical simulations with Kalker’s and Vollebregt’s software CONTACT show that the rolling direction leads to differences in the contact region and the traction distribution. Using the method of dimensionality reduction we derive the analytical shakedown limits for the tangential load and the oscillation amplitude. The results show strong agreement with experimental data and allow the accurate prediction of the shakedown displacement and the maximum tangential load capacity in the shakedown state. It shows that a perpendicular alignment of force and rolling direction increases the final displacement in case of shakedown as well as the incremental shift in case of ratcheting.     

Basic ideas and applications of the method of reduction of dimensionality in contact mechanics

The method of reduction of dimensionality in contact mechanics is based on a mapping of some classes of three-dimensional contact problems onto one-dimensional contacts with elastic foundations. Recently, a rigorous mathematical proof of the method has been provided for contacts of arbitrary bodies of revolution with and without adhesion. The method of reduction of dimensionality has been further verified for randomly rough surfaces. The present paper gives an overview of the physical foundations of the method and of its applications to elastic and viscoelastic contacts with adhesion and friction. Both normal and tangential contact problems are discussed.     

A method to determine dynamic loads on spur gear teeth and on bearings

A method is described which can be used to calculate dynamic gear tooth force and bearing forces. The model includes elastic bearings. The gear mesh stiffness and the path of contact are determined using the deformations of the gears and the bearings. This gives contact outside the plane-of-action and a time-varying working pressure angle. In a numerical example it is found that the only important vibration mode for the gear contact is the one where the gear tooth deformation is dominant. The bearing force variation, however, will be much more affected by the other vibration modes. The influence of the friction force is also studied. The friction has no dynamic influence on the gear contact force or on the bearing force in the gear mesh line-of-action direction. On the other hand, the changing of sliding directions in the pitch point is a source for critical oscillations of the bearings in the gear tooth frictional direction. These bearing force oscillations in the frictional direction appear unaffected by the dynamic response along the gear mesh line-of-action direction.     

Evolution of real contact area during stick-slip movement observed by total reflection method

We build an experiment system based on total reflection(TR) method to observe the evolution of real contact area of polymethyl methacrylate(PMMA) in the continual stick-slip movement. The bilateral friction is adopted to overcome the bending moment in the lateral friction movement. Besides some classical phenomena of stick-slip movement such as periodical slow increase of frictional force in sticking phase and a sudden drop when slipping, a special phenomenon that the contact area increases with the tangential force is observed, which was called junction growth by Tabor in 1959.Image processing methods are developed to observe the variation of the junction area. The results show that the center of the strongest contact region will keep sticking under the tangential force until the whole slipping, the strongest point undergoes three stages in one cycle, which are named as sticking stage, fretting stage, and cracking stage, respectively. The combined analysis reveals a physical process of stick-slip movement: the tangential force causes the increase of the real contact area, which reduces the pressure between the contact spots and finally leads to the slipping. Once slipping occurs,the real contact area drops to the original level resulting in the pressure increase to the original level, which makes the sticking happen again.     

A dynamic Lagrangian frequency-time method for the vibration of dry-friction-damped systems

A new frequency-time domain procedure, the dynamic Lagrangian mixed frequency-time method (DLFT), is proposed to calculate the non-linear steady state response to periodic excitation of structural systems subject to dry friction damping. In this formulation, the dynamic Lagrangians are defined as the non-linear contact forces obtained from the equations of motion in the frequency domain, with the adjunction of a penalization on the difference between the interface displacements calculate by the non-linear solver in the frequency domain and those calculated in the time domain from the non-linear contact forces, thus accounting for Coulomb friction and non-penetration conditions. The dynamic Lagrangians allow one to solve for the non-linear forces between two points in contact without using artifacts such as springs. The new DLFT method is thus particularly well suited to handling finite element models of structures in frictional contact, as it does not require a special model for the contact interface. Dynamic Lagrangians are also better suited to frequency-domain friction problems than the traditional time-domain method of augmented Lagrangians. Furthermore, a reduction of the non-linear system to relative interface displacements is introduced to decrease the computation time. The DLFT method is validated for a beam in contact with a flexible dry friction element connected to ground, for frictional constraints that feature two-dimensional relative motion. Results are also obtained for a large-scale structural system with a large number of one-dimensional dry-friction dampers. The DLFT method is shown to be accurate and fast, and it does not suffer from convergence problems, at least in the examples studied.     

Electrical contact resistance and dynamic contact stiffness for a cluster of microcontacts: cross-property connection in the low-frequency range

An explicit cross-property connection for a rough interface between the electrical contact resistance and dynamic contact stiffness has been established in the low-frequency limit. The present analysis is based on the first-order asymptotic model of multiple dynamic contact between small flat-ended indenters on an elastic half-space, which is a dynamic analogue of the quasi-static Greenwood model. The obtained results can be used in developing a vibration method for measuring the interface contact stiffness in tribological systems, and in estimating the surface-roughness effect in oscillation indentation tests.     

Mechanism analysis and improved model for stick-slip friction behavior considering stress distribution variation of interface

Studying the evolution of interface contact state, revealing the "black box" behavior in interface friction and establishing a more accurate friction model are of great significance to improve the prediction accuracy of mechanical system performance. Based on the principle of total reflection, a visual analysis technology of interface contact behavior is proposed. Considering the dynamic variation of stress distribution in interface contact, we analyze the nonlinear characteristics of contact parameters in different stages of stick-slip process using the above-mentioned experimental technology. Then, we find that the tangential stiffness of the interface is not a fixed value during the stick-slip process and the stress distribution variation is one of the important factors affecting the tangential stiffness of interface. Based on the previous experimental results, we present an improved stick-slip friction model, considering the change of tangential stiffness and friction coefficient caused by the stress distribution variation. This improved model can characterize the variation characteristics of contact parameters in different stages of stick-slip process, whose simulation results are in good agreement with the experimental data. This research may be valuable for improving the prediction accuracy of mechanical system performance.     

Numerical simulation of micro-scratch tests for coating/substrate composites

In this paper the micro-scratch test is simulated by ANSYS finite element code for thin hard coating on substrate composite material system. Coulomb friction between indenter and material surface is considered. The material elastic-plastic properties are taken into account. Contact elements are used to simulate the frictional contact between indenter and material surfaces, as well as the frictional contact after the detachment of coating/substrate interfaces has taken place. In the case of coating/substrate interfaces being perfectly bonded, the distributions of interfacial normal stress and shear stress are obtained for the material system subjected to normal and tangential loading. In the case of considering the detachment of interfaces, the length of interfacial detachment and the redistribution of stresses because of interfacial detachments are obtained. The influences of different frictional coefficients and different indenter moving distances on the distributions of stresses and displacements are studied. In the simulation, the interfacial adhesion shear strength is considered as a main adhesion parameter of coating/substrate interfaces. The critical normal loading from scratch tests are directly related to interfacial adhesion shear strengths. Using the critical normal loading known from experiments, the interfacial adhesion shear strength is obtained from the calculation. When the interfacial adhesion shear strength is known, the critical normal loading is obtained for different coating thicknesses. The numerical results are compared with the experimental values for composite materials of thin TiN coating on stainless steel substrate.