Adhesion-fatigue dual mode wear model for fractal surfaces in AISI 1045 cylinder-plane contact pairs

A combination of adhesive wear and fatigue wear exists in many tribological applications; it is a matter of concern for the operation and safety of various systems. This has necessitated the development of new models to predict the evolution of wear. In this study, a practical adhesive-fatigue dual mode wear model is developed for fractal surfaces in cylinder-plane contact pairs. Adhesive and fatigue wear mechanisms are distinguished based on the critical diameter of the contact area between two asperities. Then, the fractal function is employed to derive the formula for wear loss for the fractal surface asperities on the surfaces of cylinder-plane contact pairs. Very small differences are observed between the predicted wear rate and data from laboratory tests on self-mated AISI 1045 cylinder-plane contact pairs; this confirms the reliability of the proposed model for this geometry and material. The effects of sliding time, impact frequency, and speed of rotation on the nature of the worn surfaces is discussed, and the results are consistent with the proposed model.