Wear 350-351 (2016) 74–81

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Wear
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/wear

The measurement of wear using AFM and wear interpretation using

a contact mechanics coupled wear model
J. Furustig a,n, I. Dobryden b,c, A. Almqvist a, N. Almqvist b, R. Larsson a
a
Division of Machine Elements, Luleå University of Technology, 971 81 Luleå, Sweden
b
Division of Material Science, Luleå University of Technology, 971 81 Luleå, Sweden
c
Division of Surface and Corrosion Science, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Detailed understanding of wear processes is required to improve the wear resistance and lifetime of
Received 31 July 2015 machine components. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is used to measure surface height profiles with
Received in revised form high precision, before and after a wear experiment. The distribution and depth of wear on steel surfaces
21 December 2015
is then calculated using a relocation method. A numerical investigation of wear based on Archard's
Accepted 1 January 2016
equation is conducted on the same measured surfaces. A good correlation was found between the model
Available online 22 January 2016
and experiment for wear larger than a hundred nm. The wear mechanisms considered in the numerical
Keywords: simulation was thus found to be the cause of the majority of the wear. On the scale of tens of nm the
AFM correlation was limited, but the measured wear was still analysed in detail.
Wear
& 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Topography
Numerical analysis

1. Introduction optical methods [26,22]. Optical 3D surface measurement techni-

Wear is quantified by comparing measured quantities of a
sample, such as volumetric material loss or mass loss, before and
after a wear experiment [4]. It is well established that wear has a
large impact on performance and lifetime of machines [19]. The
financial losses due to wear is a significant part of an industrialised
nations gross national product. This requires improved wear
resistance, achievable through detailed understanding of wear
processes. One good approach to increase the understanding of the
wear process, is by means of numerical simulations. An advantage
compared with experimental investigations is access to detailed
information of the physical conditions in the contact during the
wear process. The exact influence of contact conditions on wear,
however, is still not well established. As the conditions can be
calculated, a deciding factor for improved wear models are accu-
rate wear measurements. The construction of reliable wear models
requires exact measurements of wear with high accuracy and
precise localization.
There are several commonly used techniques to measure sur-
face topography, such as stylus profilometry, atomic force micro-
scopy (AFM) and 3D surface measurement techniques based on
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: þ 46 70 7104144; fax: þ46 920 49 1047.
E-mail addresses: joel.furustig@ltu.se (J. Furustig),
illia.dobryden@ltu.se (I. Dobryden), andreas.almqvist@ltu.se (A. Almqvist),
nils.almqvist@ltu.se (N. Almqvist), roland.larsson@ltu.se (R. Larsson).
ques such as vertical scanning (white-light) interferometry (VSI)
can have a lateral resolution of 0:55 μm. Furthermore, optical
techniques can introduce optical artefacts. In a recent publication
by Spencer et al. [28] the difference between AFM and VSI, was
investigated. The difference between measurements using AFM
and VSI on an engineering surface was within 7%, in terms of a
roughness parameter. In many cases, errors of this magnitude can
be acceptable, while in other investigations, such as this work,
more accurate measurements of the surfaces are desired. Tradi-
tional stylus profilometry, a contact method to measure line pro-
files of surfaces, has much lower resolution than AFM. AFM is
considered herein as the most suitable technique with a highest
possible lateral resolution of 0.2 nm and a vertical resolution up to
0.01 nm.
Relocation of the surface topography after the wear process is
an important part of the wear analysis. Cabanettes and Rosen [6]
recently measured contacting surfaces in a valve train test rig
before and after the wear process and relocalised the wear on the
surface. Many surface roughness parameters and their changes
were investigated and a clear image of the wear distribution was
provided. As the physical conditions vary and no contact
mechanical analysis was conducted in [6], the study cannot be
directly used to formulate wear equations. Similarly, Gåhlin and
Jacobson [13] introduced relocalisation of topographies before and
after the wear process on the nanoscale, using AFM. No contact
mechanical analysis was included in their study.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wear.2016.01.002
0043-1648/& 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 J. Furustig et al. / Wear 350-351 (2016) 74–81
Relocation methods give a detailed map of the wear distribu-
tion on a surface. Tribologically induced contact pressures and
local temperatures, used to determine the wear in a continuum
model [2], can be estimated by means of numerical simulations.
Relations between the contact conditions and the wear are then
needed. One commonly used relation is Archard's wear equation.
In general, applying an equation such as Archard's leads to a non-
linear initial value problem:
dV
¼ f ðp; T; …Þ: ð1Þ
dt
The wear rate dV dt
depends on for example the pressure p and
temperature T. The model system further considers wear occurring
on top of a surface; sub-surface effects, e.g. crack formation,
require a different approach.
The contact stress and temperature inside the interface
between rough surfaces in relative motion, can be modelled and
computed by means of numerical simulation methods. A mini-
mum energy approach was used by Kalker [18] to formulate a
relation between deformation and pressure. Similar relations
between generated heat and temperature rise have been pre-
sented by Carslaw and Jaeger [7]. Fast Fourier transform (FFT)
methods have been used to efficiently solve the system of equa-
tions for the temperature [11] and stresses [20] in rough surface
contacts. Multi level multi integration (MLMI) has also been
applied [5]. The MLMI method takes advantage of the fact that the
local temperature rise or strain on a surface is mainly depending
on the nearby friction heat or contact pressure. Both methods (FFT
and MLMI) are similar in terms of numerical efficiency and have
both been found to agree well with analytically solved special
cases and with finite element method results.
Jamari [16] applied an elasto plastic model of the aforemen-
tioned type to model contact between rough measured surfaces.
Jamari also measured the surface topography of the same surfaces
after a wear process. The results from numerical simulation were
compared with the results from experiments. Jamari found a
reasonable agreement between measured wear depths and pre-
dicted plastic deformation. The matching and stitching method
which was used in [16] to determine wear depths, is only suitable
for non-conformal contacts, where there is a large area of unworn
surface surrounding the worn area. A disadvantage with non-
conformal contact is that the physical conditions, for instance
contact pressure, vary due to both the roughness and the non-
conformity of the test sample. Relocation and subtraction methods
such as those used in [6,13,17], constitute a tool to measure wear
depth locally and this can be used for improving and validating
wear models. The wear depth reported in the aforementioned
work [6], was measured in the order of micrometers, while in [16]
and [13] sub micrometer wear depths were found. The wear
depths measured by Gåhlin et al. [13] was determined with a
precision in the order of 30 nm.
In this work, a relocation and subtraction method for measur-
ing wear on the nanoscale using AFM is applied. In order to enable
the study of the change in surface topography, the wear experi-
ment is designed to produce small wear volumes on the summits
of asperities. Furthermore, a goal with the experimental design is
to achieve predictable conditions in the interface between the
contacting bodies. Conditions that vary mainly due to wear rather
than due to variations in the relative positioning of the contacting
surfaces is strived for. The experiment design reaches this goal in
terms of pressure but not in terms of temperature. Wear grooves
with depths from a few tens to a few hundreds of nm are mea-
sured. The contact pressure between a surface exhibiting the
topography measured with the AFM and a perfectly flat and
smooth counter surface is calculated by means of numerical
simulations. The numerical simulation utilises FFT. The contact
75
pressure is then used to evaluate the wear depths applying
Archard's equation. An iterative procedure where the geometry is
updated and a new pressure distribution is repeatedly calculated is
applied. The results from the measured wear depths from
experiments are compared with the wear depths predicted by
numerical simulation.
2. Method
A tribological wear test is designed to achieve controlled con-
ditions in the interface between two disks in relative motion, on
the topography scale. One flat, smoother, and one rough steel
surface are used in a disk on disk test rig. Before and after the
experiment the surfaces are measured with AFM. By using three
indentation marks, a worn area on the rough surface is relocated
after the wear test. The indentation marks were deep relative to
the wear depth. The measurements of the rough surface before
wear is used as input to a numerical wear simulation. The simu-
lation calculates the gradual change of the surface topography due
to wear, including iterative updates of the pressure distribution.
2.1. Experimental details
The wear experiment is conducted under dry conditions in a
disk on disk (face to face) clutch test machine. The test rig is fur-
ther described in [9]. Two steel disks with an outer diameter of
12 cm, as shown in [9], are used as test samples. The test rig is
chosen due to the conformal contact between the disks.
The steel disks were both ground with abrasive paper. In order
to achieve as close to steady state pressure as possible, one of the
surfaces was further polished in order to achieve a significantly
smoother surface finish compared with its counterpart. Gradually
finer particles were used, with a final particles radius of 15:3 μm
for the rougher surface and 1 μm for the flat surface. The average
roughness (Sa ) after polishing of the flat surface was 6.1 nm,
measured over an area of 20 μm to 20 μm. The idea is that the
same asperities on the rougher of the samples will be in contact
with the smoother surface throughout the test. Due to wear on
these asperities, the contact pressure will slowly change. The effect
of temperature is limited through low sliding speeds and short
run-times in the experiment.
The relocation of the same surface area on the rough steel disk
after wearing, is of primary importance in order to study the
topography changes due to wear. This is done by employing a
Vickers hardness test to create indentation marks on the surface. A
large square area on the steel surface is marked with 4 indents by
300 g load. Then a triangular area inside the large area is similarly
marked using 3 small indents applying a load of 25 g. Three dif-
ferent areas were marked with this pattern. The depth of indents
is approximately 1:24 μm. The 4 indents in a square formation are
sizeable enough to relocate the reference points by visual
inspection. The smaller indents are visible by microscope and can
be found as they are located in a known position relative to the
4 deeper indents. The pattern of the indentations was used for
relocating the surfaces after the wear process. The hardness was
also recorded for the indentations with 300 g and 25 g. The micro
indentation using loads of 300 g and 25 g, gave an average Vickers
hardness of 311 and 301, respectively. The hardness translates into
an ideal plastic contact pressure limit of 3 GPa, a value acquired by
numerically reproducing the indentation marks. The flatter
smoother counter surface had a Vickers hardness of 218. The
indentations were made after the grinding procedure.
The test is run at 200 N but some fluctuations occurred. The
force is kept between 100 and 260 N during the whole test, with
an average load of 197 N. The test is run for 30 s, with a rotational
76 J. Furustig et al. / Wear 350-351 (2016) 74–81
speed of 4 rpm. The moment curve also fluctuated, with a pattern
similar to that of the measured force curve. The resulting friction
coefficient varied between 0.06 and 0.26. The arithmetic average
value of the friction coefficient was 0.17. The variation in load,
moment and friction were possibly due to stick-slip, imperfect
surface alignment of the samples or unwanted waviness of the
samples.
2.2. Surface measurements, filtering and relocation
The AFM measurements were performed with a Solver AFM
(NT-MDT) equipped with a 100 μm head scanner. The surface
areas of 70  70 μm were scanned with 1024  1024 data points
in contact mode using a silicon probe CSC-21 (NT-MDT) with a tip
height of 7 μm, tip radius less than 20 nm and force constant of
2 N/m. The scan velocity was 80 μm/s.
The acquired AFM height images were subjected to standard
background removal procedures prior to use in simulation and
relocation. The first data transformation procedure was a line fit-
ting method. A second order regression curve is computed and
subtracted from every recorded horizontal line (fast-scan direc-
tion). The fitting procedure did not significantly influence the real
surface waviness of the measured surfaces used further in simu-
lations. Finally, a simple linear 2D plane was removed from each
image to remove eventual sample tilt and/or drift in the slow scan
direction.
The measured, filtered and planarized surfaces have separate
coordinate values for each x, y and z, before and after wear. One of
the centre points in the indentation marks is therefore used as a
relocation reference for a common origin of the measurements of
the surfaces before and after wear. The coordinate systems of the
two samples are adjusted thereafter. Following this, the coordinate
systems are rotated around the z-axis, so that one more centre of
an indentation mark is aligned. Since the tilt has already been
removed, the surfaces are considered aligned at this point, with
the indentation marks at the same coordinate values before and
after wear data. In order to analyse wear depth, the z-coordinates
of the surface before wear, are subtracted from the surface coor-
dinates after wear. In order to conduct this subtraction the sur-
faces are first interpolated on the same x–y grid. More precisely,
the linear interpolation routine implemented in the MATLAB
function ‘griddata’ is employed.
Surface patches with and without indentation marks are gen-
erated this way. The area including indentation marks, on which
numerical simulations were conducted, was of dimensions
50 μm  50 μm. One smaller area, containing no indentation
marks, was of dimensions 20 μm  20 μm, and the other smaller
area was of dimensions 12 μm  12 μm.
2.3. Simulation details
The pressure distribution on the rough surfaces is calculated by
applying a contact mechanics solver as described by Sahlin et al.
[27]. The model is as the one presented by Tian and Bhushan [30]
and the numerical solution procedure is a development of the
procedure presented by Stanley and Kato [29], in order to also
account for plastic deformation of the contacting surfaces. This
linear elastic – perfectly plastic contact mechanics solver has also
been applied by other researchers, e.g., by Almqvist et al. [1] or
more recently, Pérez-Ràfols et al. [25]. Wear was introduced in the
system by removing material according to the relation
h ¼ kps:
were h is the height of material removed on a node, p is the nodal
pressure, and s is the distance of sliding during one time incre-
ment. According to [24], this form of Archards wear equation is
Table 1
Material and system parameters, used to
numerically calculate the contact conditions in
terms of pressure and wear, between the two
surfaces.
Elastic modulus 210 GPa
Plastic deformation limit 3 GPa
Wear coefficient 2  10  15 m3 /Nm
Nominal pressure 37 kPa
Poisson's ratio 0.29
suitable for numerical evaluation of material removal. The simu-
lations, simulating 30 s of wear, are divided into 100 time incre-
ments. Between each time increment material is removed, due to
wear and plastic deformation. A new pressure distribution is then
calculated. The process is then repeated 100 times. The nominal
pressure, calculated from the average load over the area of the disk
was held constant at 37 kPa.
The parameters used for the material pair are summarized in
Table 1. The wear coefficient, estimated from the total wear
volume measured in the experiment, is 2  10  15 Pa  1 . The coef-
ficient was calculated from Eq. (2), with a node average wear
height of 1.4 nm. The total sliding distance in the measured area
was estimated to 630 mm. Values on the dimensional wear coef-
ficient in the range of 5  10  16  3:7  10  11 Pa  1 for different
steel–steel contacts can be found in the literature [3,10,23].
The area surrounding the indentation marks can be plastically
deformed during the indentation procedure. Large asperities will
then protrude on the surface around the indentation marks. This
causes the area containing indentation marks to carry a greater
part of the load compared to the nominal pressure on the disks.
The pressure in an area containing indentation marks can be
estimated by means of numerical simulations, and is needed for
wear simulations. This can be achieved by calculating the contact
pressure on an artificial surface, containing measured features.
Numerical simulations are used in this work to estimate wear
distribution under the assumption of a flat smooth counter sur-
face. Protruding indentation marks in the measured zone carry
relatively large load, thus relieving pressure from nearby areas of
similar size. By extending the measured area with an artificial
surrounding area, having similar roughness but no protruding
indentation marks, the ratio of pressure carried by the measured
area and the nominal pressure can be estimated.
The size of an area containing indentation marks corresponds
to the size of the measured area A, depicted in Fig. 2. The nominal
pressure of the patch containing indentation marks was found to
be 1.1 MPa, about 30 times larger than the pressure compared with
an area of the same size far away from the indentation marks.
If the counter surface is completely flat, the wear on the ground
surface is expected to occur only on the large asperities in the
numerical simulation. The shape of a real surface, however, may
still cause contact in areas near the indentation marks. As the
counter surface (assumed smooth in the numerical simulations)
corresponds to a very large area in the experiment, it is not fea-
sible to measure its exact shape. Therefore, the pressure is
expected to be zero from counter surface contact. However, the
nominal pressure of the experiment is used as input to numerical
simulations of wear in areas B and C (depicted in Fig. 2), in order to
investigate whether wear, by the mechanisms that are accounted
ð2Þ for in the numerical simulation, is a possible cause of the mea-
sured nanowear.
The numerical simulation was independently performed on the
three different areas depicted in Fig. 2.
 J. Furustig et al. / Wear 350-351 (2016) 74–81
3. Results and discussion
Fig. 1 shows the height surface profile with three indents before
(a) and after (b) the wear process, in an area measured using AFM.
The same three indentation marks are clearly observable on the
images allowing us to compare surface areas before and after the
wear test. These indents are surrounded by the highest asperities
in the measured area, and are the result of plastic deformation
during the indentation process. It can be seen in Fig. 1 that the
height of asperities around indents is lower and the asperity tips
have been flattened due to the wear process. As an example, the
average heights of asperities around one indent, caused by plastic
deformation during the indentation before the wear test, were
294 7 34 nm, as measured with AFM. The average height of
asperities around indents had decreased to 209 7 10 nm when
measured after the wear test. Any measurement artefacts were
excluded from further analysis by low pass filtering. In order to
investigate wear depths at different length scales, three sub-areas
of the measured area were investigated further.
The measured area is investigated using the numerical model.
Three parts of the measured area is analysed separately as depic-
ted in Fig. 2. Area A, with measured wear depths in the order of
hundreds of nm, is marked with an A in Fig. 2. Area A, contains
two indentation marks and is the largest of the investigated areas.
Area B and C contain no indentation marks. Areas A, B and C are
aligned so that the sliding direction is vertical. If before wear and
after wear data are to be compared, an overlapping region
between the measurements is required. This, together with the
desired sliding direction limits the size and location of area A. Area
B and area C are smaller areas, partially sub-areas of Area A. Areas
B and C are studied in order to investigate nano sized wear
Fig. 1. The AFM height images showing the surfaces, before (a) and after (b) wear.
77
volumes in detail. The specific areas B and C contained very few
measurement artefacts. The numerical simulations are performed
independently on the different areas. In areas B and C, numerical
simulations are utilized as a qualitative tool, to aid the analysis.
The wear simulation for areas B and C also makes it possible to
compare the wear mechanisms on the larger (area A) scale with
those on the smaller (areas B and C) scale.
3.1. Wear depth and simulation results
The wear depth in area A, in terms of simulation results and
measurements, are both shown in Fig. 3. It is clear that most of the
wear occurs around the indentation marks. The wear surrounding
indentation marks with a depth of 100–250 nm, is largely located
in the same spots in simulation and measurements. This wear on
the asperities surrounding indentation marks, is due to contact
pressure between the measured area and the relatively flat
counter surface. The wear manifests in the simulation partially due
to plastic deformation and partially due to the implementation of
Archard's equation. The plastic deformation occurs in the very first
few time steps, rapidly decreasing with time. In the type of
numerical simulation that was conducted, such a behaviour is
expected, as the peak pressures decrease with the smoothing
effect of wear. In the following time steps there is a state of gradual
material removal from the apex of asperities, following Archard's
equation.
In area A, alongside with the large wear depth measured on the
asperities surrounding indentation marks, it was also possible to
measure wear depths smaller than 100 nm in regions of area A
located at a distance from the indentation marks. These smaller
wear depths are clearly observable in Fig. 3. However, all of the
nanoscale wear is not captured by the simulation. One possible
explanation for this is the assumption applied in the model, that
the counter surface is flat. The assumption leads to a model where
the highest points on the rough surface are the only points that
can come into contact. In the experiment, the flat surface rough-
ness is controlled by polishing with finer particles compared with
the rough surface. However, this polishing procedure cannot be
expected to completely eliminate waviness. Furthermore, the flat
surface is polished to a finer texture before the experiment, but
wear during the experiment would still cause a change in shape of
the counter surface and wear particles could be produced. The
Fig. 2. The measured surface before wear as seen from above. The measured sur-
face is divided into three areas: A, B and C.
78 J. Furustig et al. / Wear 350-351 (2016) 74–81

Fig. 3. To the left, the AFM height image showing the unworn surface in area A is shown. In the centre is the wear depth measured experimentally. To the right, the
corresponding wear depth predicted by numerical simulations is depicted. Positive wear depths have been excluded from the figure.

Fig. 4. To the left is the AFM height image showing the unworn surface in area B. In the centre, the wear depth of the area illustrated in area B is shown. Straight vertical wear
scars are due to hard asperities on the counter surface that have ploughed the illustrated surface. To the right the corresponding numerical result is seen. Positive wear
depths have been excluded from the figure. Wear depths of 20 nm or more are shown with the same colour. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure
caption, the reader is referred to the web version of this paper.)

discrepancies between simulation and experiment can originate
from these sources.
The wear depths in areas B and C, together with simulation
results, are illustrated in Figs. 4 and 5. The figures of area B (of
dimension 20 by 20 μm) and area C (of dimension 12 by 12 μm)
demonstrate depth and distribution of nanowear.
A part of the measured wear marks in area B is also predicted
by means of numerical simulations, as can be seen in Fig. 4.
However, the simulation does not predict a majority of the wear
observed from the experiment and the deepest observed wear
scars are not predicted by the numerical simulation. A disagree-
ment between the measured wear and the wear predicted by
means of numerical simulation is also clear in area C, see Fig. 5.
The numerical simulation predicts wear on the highest surface
features. The measured wear, seen in the centre of Fig. 5, reveals
significant amounts of wear on other locations of the surface.
The disagreement between simulation and experiment can be
due to several possible reasons. The main reason is thought to be
the assumptions and limitations of the numerical model. For
instance, the smooth surface is polished with particles of a smaller
diameter which may lead to sharper asperities on the nanoscale.
Therefore, the smooth counter surface assumption of the model
loses its validity. Especially long, straight, valley like wear features
seen in the observed wear in Fig. 4 at e.g. x ¼ 0 nm and x ¼ 9 nm,
indicate that hard asperities have been ploughing the surface in
sliding direction. The plastic deformation is considered in a sim-
plified manner in the numerical simulation, as the applied method
relies on the half-space assumption and consequently disregards
some sub-surface effects which could occur in the experiment.
Also, it is well known that wear in the valleys of the surfaces could
occur due to third bodies, an effect not considered in the model.
Perhaps the most likely reason for topography changes at this
scale could be wear by third bodies. The contact conditions can be
dramatically affected if a particle gets trapped between the two
surfaces. Wear scars in Fig. 4 that are not vertical (the direction of
sliding), are probable candidates for effects from third body wear.
 J. Furustig et al. / Wear 350-351 (2016) 74–81 79

Fig. 5. To the left is the AFM height image showing the unworn surface in area C. In the centre is the measured wear depth of the area. To the right the corresponding
numerical result is seen. Positive wear depths have been excluded from the figure. Wear depths of 20 nm or more are shown with the same colour. The hatched lines marked
with α, β, γ and δ show the location of the surface profiles depicted in Fig. 6. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure caption, the reader is referred to the
web version of this paper.)

Fig. 6. Measured profiles in Area C, before and after wear.

Most of the wear seen in the centre of Fig. 5, is at an angle with the
sliding direction. This indicates that a large particle passed over
this area in a single event, causing a majority of the wear in Area C.
A further issue with applying the wear model on the nano-
metre scale, is that the mechanisms of wear are governed by non-
continuum effects, such as adhesive forces between molecules.
Molecules or atoms detach and can possibly be reattached else-
where. This type of wear, usually referred to as ‘atomic attrition’, is
not inconsistent with the presence of third bodies or sharp aspe-
rities on the counter surface. On the contrary, a high probability of
breaking and formation of inter atomic bonds requires high energy
densities, in terms of stress and/or temperature [12,15,14]. Stress
and temperature in a sliding interface is certainly affected by the
counter surface asperities and the presence of third bodies.
Thermal distortion of the material, plastic deformation or a
deformation of the reference points, are other possible explana-
tions for the changes in topography seen in the left side of
Figs. 4 and 5. It is possible that material (wear particles), down to
the size of atoms could have been detached and reattached on
other locations during the wear process. A wear mechanism is
inferred, such as shown by molecular dynamics simulations by
Vargonen et al. [31]. In the wear mechanism, particles (atoms) are
shovelled along the contacting bodies and attach on new cites.
The study of nanowear with AFM can also be affected by other
factors, such as instrumental imperfections and data changes
caused by filtration and alignment procedures. In order to mini-
mize effects from hysteresis and creep of the piezoceramic tube
scanner, a scanner with capacitive scanner displacement sensors
was used for height measurements and closed-loop lateral scan-
ning. However, the sensors can introduce a small jitter i.e. a small
shift in the feedback circuit for the lateral x- and y- scanning
directions. This requires a correction of the measured raw data.
Also, the very end of the cantilever tip can be worn slightly during
the scanning and thus lower spatial resolution and increased tip
80 J. Furustig et al. / Wear 350-351 (2016) 74–81
convolution with the surface. The most significant effect on the
measured z-position, is likely caused by the procedures of filtra-
tion of the data before and after wear test. It is possible that an
error as large as a few nm is introduced by the filtering process.
The possible offset in x- and z- direction could be estimated
from the surface profiles. By analysing the surface profiles, the
possible mechanisms of nanowear discussed above, can be dis-
tinguished. The cross-sections of surface measurements before
and after the wear test are shown in Fig. 6. The profiles are marked
with Greek letters α, β , γ and δ and are recorded perpendicular to
the sliding direction. The location of the illustrated profiles are
shown by the dashed lines in the image to the right in Fig. 5.
Wear in the order of 2 nm to tens of nm can be observed from
the surface profile plots. Some parts of the surface remain almost
unchanged as can be seen in the change of the cross-section plots
before and after the wear test. This indicates that the surfaces
were not in contact at these locations and no third body wear
occurred. Also, this indicates that the observed changes in height
is mainly due to wear and not the result of a constant offset in z-
direction caused by applied filtration and alignment procedures.
The possible z-offset was estimated by comparing the depth of two
uninfluenced and unchanged deep valleys in area C. The estimated
discrepancy between the depths of both valleys before and after
the test was found to be 1:4 nm. From comparing the two points,
the value of 1:4 nm can be seen as a rough indication of the wear
depth measurement accuracy in this study.
As seen from the cross-section plots depicted in Fig. 6, the
surface profile changes significantly at some locations. For
instance, some surface features appearing as peaks in the before
wear test profile, are getting split into a few peaks, for example
around x ¼ 4 μm in the profiles labelled α and δ. Another inter-
esting feature is that much wear occurs in the valleys, for example
at x ¼  5 μm in the profile labelled β and at x ¼  2 in the profile
labelled δ. Similarly, much wear occurred on the side of the surface
peak at x ¼ 5 in the profile labelled α. This can be due to third
bodies but also due to interaction with rough asperities from the
counter surfaces. Also, it is expectable that the observed nanowear
contains a contribution from ‘atomic attrition’ wear at this scale
but this cannot be easily determined from the presented results.
4. Conclusions
The contact between a flat, smooth surface and a rougher
surface was investigated in a relative sliding, disk on disk, wear
test machine. AFM was used to quantify wear on a surface by
comparing the surface topographies before and after wear. The
measurement showed that most of the wear occurred on the
highest asperities surrounding indentation marks. Also, the
nanowear of tens nm and more on areas away from the indenta-
tion marks was measured.
A numerical model simulating the contact in the wear test
resulted in wear coinciding location wise with the measured wear.
The pressure distribution on an area larger than the measured area
was estimated by means of numerical simulations. The asperities
formed during indentation were large enough to carry a sig-
nificantly larger load compared with the surrounding area. This
suggests that the pressure distribution and thus wear, depends on
the exact surface topography over a large area. A good agreement
was found between the simulation and experiment for the wear
larger than 100 nm. However, the simulation of the wear on a scale
of tens of nm only correlated on specific locations with the mea-
sured wear and did not show a good agreement. This behaviour
was expected and indicates that the nanowear occurs due to a
presence of third bodies, whose influence becomes more sig-
nificant on the smaller scale. Nevertheless, the numerical
simulation was successfully utilized on the small scale to interpret
the nanowear measured with AFM, by excluding wear mechan-
isms. The results from the applied method show that the wear
mechanism differs for large scale (Area A) and small scale (Areas B
and C) wear.
The deterministic calculation of wear on rough surfaces con-
sequently includes accurate consideration of the actual topo-
graphy over the whole nominal contact area. It is therefore
recommended that the validation of deterministic wear models
intended to consider topographical effects are performed on small
nominal contact areas. Optimally, the simulation is sufficiently
effective for the whole contact area to be resolved to the desired
resolution.
The threshold between when a continuum analysis is applic-
able and when molecular effects need to be considered has been
studied numerically by Luan and Robbins [21], but the threshold
has not been exactly located, according to Colao¸o [8]. It is thus
interesting to note: the agreement, in this work, between simu-
lations applying a continuum mechanics approach and experi-
ments, falls of between hundreds and tens of nm.
Acknowledgements
Sincere gratitude goes to Nowshir Fatima and Kim Berglund,
Luleå University of Technology, for their aid with the wear test
equipment. This work was funded by the Swedish foundation for
strategic research (Proviking). The Kempe Foundations SMK-2546
is acknowledged for funding the AFM.
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