Engineering Tribology

Lecture 3 : CONTACT BETWEEN SURFACES

Prof. Dr. M.O.A.Mokhtar Assoc. Dr. Mohamed El-Shazly

Professor Emeritus of Machine Design Associate Professor of Machine Design

Mechanical Design and Production Dept.

Faculty of Engineering –Cairo University
April 2021 14 April 2021
 CONTACT BETWEEN SURFACES
2
 When two nominally plane and parallel
surfaces are brought gently together,
contact will initially occur at only a few
points.
 As the normal load is increased, the
surfaces move closer together and a
larger number of the higher areas or
asperities on the two surfaces come into
contact.
 Since these asperities provide the only
points at which the surfaces touch, they
are responsible for supporting the normal
load on the surface and for generating any
frictional forces that act between them.
 An understanding of the way in which the
asperities of two surfaces interact under
varying loads is therefore essential to any
study of friction, wear; it is the concept of
asperity contact that provides a physical
explanation for many common tribological 14 April 2021
observations
 Elastic stress fields in normally loaded
3 contacts

 Elastic point contact

 When a sphere of an elastic material
is pressed against another elastic
sphere under a normal load W, as
shown in Fig. 2.8, contact will occur
between the two over a circular area
of radius a, given by:

Reduced modulus (E*)

Elastic deformation of a Hertzian point
contact between two spherical surface
under normal load W to form a contact
circle with radius a

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The radii of the individual bodies are positive for convex surfaces and negative for
concave.
 Spherical Contact Surfaces

 Where a = radius of circular contact area

And
po = pmax = maximum pressure.
  The pressure p(r) in the contact varies with distance r from the center of the
5 contact as:

where po is the maximum pressure that occurs at the center of the contact (r =0).
The load supported by the contact is simply the integral of the pressure over its area:

The mean pressure acting over the contact area, pm, is also equal to the applied load
divided by the area:

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 Elastic line contact
6
Cylinders in Contact
 A second geometry for which the details of the
elastic contact mechanics are particularly useful is
that of the line contact, applicable to two
cylindrical surfaces in contact with their axes
parallel to each other, or to a cylinder loaded
against a plane and making contact along a line.
 In this case, the load is described in terms of a
force per unit length and produces a rectangular
contact patch of length L and width 2b.
 The value of b is given by:

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  The contact pressure p(x) where x is the distance from the Centre of the contact
patch (along a line perpendicular to the cylinder axes) is given by:
7

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8
Friction: INTRODUCTION

 We have seen in Chapter 2 that when two solid surfaces are

placed together, contact will generally occur only over
isolated parts of the nominal contact area.
 It is through these localized regions of contact that forces
are exerted between the two bodies, and it is these forces
that are responsible for friction.
 In this chapter we shall examine the origins of the frictional
force and try to understand the magnitude of the frictional
interactions between metals.

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 DEFINITION OF FRICTION
9
 The force known as friction may be defined as the
resistance encountered by one body in moving
over another.
 This broad definition embraces two important
classes of relative motion: sliding and rolling.
 The distinction between sliding and rolling friction
is useful, but the two are not mutually exclusive, and
even apparently ‘pure’ rolling nearly always involves
some sliding.
 In both ideal rolling and sliding, as illustrated in Fig.
3.1, a tangential force F is needed to move the
upper body over the stationary counter face.
 The ratio between this frictional force and the normal
load W is known as the coefficient of friction, and is
usually denoted by the symbol μ:
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 THE LAWS OF FRICTION
10
 Under some conditions of sliding, μ
for a given pair of materials and
fixed conditions (or absence) of
lubrication may remain almost
constant as the normal load and
apparent area of contact are varied.
 This observation led to the
formulation of two empirical Laws of
Sliding Friction, often called after
Guillaume Amontons who stated
them in1699.
 The Laws of Friction may be stated
as follows:
 1. The friction force is proportional to
the normal load and
 2. The friction force is independent of
the apparent area of contact
 A third law, often attributed to
Coulomb (1785):
 3. The friction force is independent of
the sliding velocity
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11
The First Law

 Figure 3.2 shows typical results for

the unlubricated sliding, in air, of
steel on polished aluminum.
 The coefficient of friction remained
effectively constant although the load
was varied by a factor of nearly 106.

The variation of the coefficient of friction, μ, with

normal load, W, for the unlubricated sliding of steel on
aluminum in air (from Bowden, F.P. Tabor, D., 1950.
The Friction and Lubrication of Solids, Clarendon Press,
Oxford, by permission of Oxford University Press) 14 April 2021
12
The Second Law
 Figure 3.3 shows the
coefficient of friction for
wooden sliders on an
unlubricated steel surface.
 The normal load was held
constant, while the apparent
area of contact was varied by
a factor of about 250; the
value of μ varied very little. Fig. 3.3 The variation of the coefficient of
friction, μ, with apparent area of contact for
wooden sliders on an unlubricated steel
surface (from Rabinowicz, E., 1995. Friction
and Wear of Materials. John Wiley)
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 The Third Law
3. The friction force is independent of the sliding velocity
13
 The Third Law of Friction is rather less
well founded than the first two.
 It is a matter of common observation that
the frictional force needed to initiate
sliding is usually greater than that
necessary to maintain it, and hence that
the coefficient of static friction (μs) is
greater than the coefficient of dynamic
(or kinetic) friction (μd).
 But once sliding is established, μd is
found for many systems to be nearly
independent of sliding velocity over quite
a wide range, although at high sliding
speeds, of the order of tens or hundreds
of meters per second for metals, μd falls
with increasing velocity
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 Classical model for sliding friction
14
The Bowden and Tabor model for sliding friction, in
its simplest form, assumes that the frictional force
arises from two sources:
an adhesion force developed at the areas of real
contact between the surfaces (the asperity
junctions),
and a deformation force needed to plough the
asperities of the harder surface through the softer.
 Although in later developments of the theory it
became clear that these two contributions cannot be
treated as strictly independent, it is convenient and
illuminating to consider them separately; the
resultant frictional force F is then taken to be the sum
of the two contributing terms, Fadh due to adhesion 14 April 2021
and Fdef due to deformation.
  The adhesion term arises from attractive forces that are assumed
15 to operate at the asperity contacts.
 At first sight, this assumption may appear unlikely; it is, after all, a
matter of common experience that when two metal surfaces are
pressed against each other they do not generally adhere.
 However, if the surfaces are truly clean, free from oxide and other
surface films and from adsorbed gases, then significant adhesion is
observed between metals; such conditions can be achieved under
ultra-high vacuum (UHV) conditions.
 Strong adhesion, with adhesive forces sometimes greater than the
load used to press the surfaces together, is seen under UHV for
ductile metals such as copper and gold.
 In less ductile materials, for example metals the adhesion is found
to be weaker.

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16  In very soft and ductile metals such as lead, and indium
adhesion can be demonstrated under ordinary laboratory
conditions (Fig. 3.5).
 If the rounded end of a brass or steel rod is degreased and
abraded to remove some of the surface contamination, and
then pressed on to the freshly-scraped surface of a block of
indium, strong adhesion will occur.
 Furthermore, when the rod is detached fragments of indium
adhere to the rod, showing that the adhesive forces at the
junctions are stronger than the cohesive strength of the
indium itself.
 Similar effects are seen in UHV experiments: if a clean iron
surface is lightly pressed against a copper surface and then
removed, examination of the iron surface reveals traces of
copper.
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 ADHESION EFFECT
17

 An experiment to illustrate adhesion between metals.

 A clean steel or brass rod is pressed with a slight twisting
motion on to the freshly-scraped surface of an indium block.
 Appreciable force is needed to detach the rod from the block,
and fragments of indium adhere to the steel surface
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  If we denote the true area of contact, the sum of the cross-
18 sectional areas of all the asperity junctions, by A, and assume
that all junctions have the same shear strength s, then the
friction force due to adhesion will be given by:

indentation hardness H of the softer material

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19 DEFORMATION EFFECT
 The frictional force due to the ploughing of harder asperities through the surface of
a softer material, the deformation term, may be estimated by considering a simple
asperity of idealized shape.
 If a rigid conical asperity of semi-angle α (see Fig. 3.7) slides over a plane surface,
the tangential force needed to displace it will be a flow pressure, which we may
take as the indentation hardness H of the surface material, multiplied by the cross-
sectional area of the groove:

Model for the deformation conical asperity of semi-angle α

indents and slides through the surface of a plastically 14 April 2021

deforming material
20

The normal load supported by the asperity is given by

The coefficient of friction due to the ploughing term will therefore be

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21  These relationships are supported by the evidence of experiments in
which macroscopic model asperities are dragged across softer metal
surfaces.
 The slopes of real surfaces are nearly always less than 10° (i.e., α > 80°),
and therefore from equations 3.11 and 3.12, we would expect μdef to be
less than about 0.1.
 We therefore conclude from our simple model that, even for a hard metal
sliding on a softer one, the total coefficient of friction, representing the
contributions from both ploughing and adhesion terms, should not exceed
0.3 or so.
 In the model just described, we have assumed that the true area of contact
is determined solely by the normal load, and that it is unaffected by
tangential forces.
 This is a considerable oversimplification.

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22

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 Junction growth
23
 Figure 3.8 shows a region of material loaded against a rigid
plane surface, representing in very idealized form an asperity
contact.
 The element of material just inside the asperity at (a) is
subjected to uniaxial compression by a normal stress po and
we can assume it to be on the point of yielding, since we
know that nearly all asperity contacts between metals are
plastic.

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  When a tangential stress is then applied to the asperity
24 junction, as at (b), the element of material experiences an
additional shear stress τ.
 For the material to remain at the point of yielding, the
normal stress on the element must be reduced to a value
p1.
 If the normal load remains constant, then the area of
contact must grow: the phenomenon is therefore known
as junction growth.

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  The relationship between po, p1 and τ is determined by the yield criterion.
25  For Tresca’s criterion, in which plastic flow occurs at a critical value of the
maximum shear stress,

Whether we use equation 3.13 or 3.14 does not much matter; both lead to the same
qualitative conclusions. Let us examine these for equation 3.13. The normal and shear
stresses are given by

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  where A is the true area of contact. Note that F here denotes the tangential force
and does not necessarily imply that sliding is actually occurring. We can now
26 substitute in equation 3.13 and obtain

➢ W is constant, while po is a property of the material (its yield stress in

compression).
➢ The real area of contact A will therefore increase with increasing tangential force,
and the ratio F/W, the instantaneous value of μ, will also increase steadily.
➢ There is nothing in this model to limit the growth process; in theory it could continue
until the whole area of the specimen was actually in contact, and the coefficient of
friction would reach a very high value.
➢ Under certain conditions junction growth in metals can indeed proceed this far, but
in most practical cases it is limited by the ductility of the material, and by the
presence of weak interfacial films.
➢ We can model the effect of a weak interface if we assume that it will fail at some
shear stress τi, less than the shear strength of the bulk material.
➢ The maximum possible tangential force is then given by:
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27
and the coefficient of friction is

If the shear yield stress of the bulk asperity

material is τo, then from the Tresca yield
criterion

An expression for μ can now be derived:

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28 FRICTION OF METALS

 SELF STUDY

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