Elastic plastic contact Under Normal and Tangential Loading: A Model for an Adhesive Wear Particle at a Spherical Contact

Wear is a very common problem between containing surfaces under combined normal and tangential loads. The main goal of the current study is a numerical prediction of adhesive wear evolution in a spherical contact. The contact consists of a deformable sphere and a rigid flat subjected to combined normal and tangential loading under full stick contact condition. Following the completion of the normal loading a tangential load is applied gradually until the contact fails and large tangential deflection of the flat takes place indicating sliding inception. Due to the full stick contact condition the sliding can occur at a certain interface beneath the contact where all the material points experience a certain maximum shear strain. The volume contained between this interface and the rigid flat forms a potential wear particle that would adhere to the moving flat and result in material transfer. Given the material property of the contacting surfaces with stick condition the wear coefficient could be calculated. Hence the potential dimensionless wear volume could also be calculated with no need for any further experimental data.