Friction and wear mechanism of abraded metals estimated from analysis of surface topographies

The influences of sliding distance and sliding speed on the characteristics of friction and wear in repeated sliding between a pin of pure metal and abrasive paper were investigated for comparison with the topography of the pin wear surface. The results were as follows: (1) The structure function of the metal pin wear surface is linear in the scale region τ ∼ 1 ∼ 10 μm. (2) The fractal dimension of the pin wear surface showed dependence on both the abrasive grit diameter and sliding speed; the smaller the grit diameter or the greater the sliding speed, the greater the fractal dimension. It also correlated with mean cross-sectional area of microgrooves. (3) The specific wear rate of copper pins correlated with fractal dimension. (4) The specific wear rate showed a nearly linear relationship with the ratio of volume removed as a debris to volume of microgrooves on log-log paper.