Study on Wear Model and Adhesive Wear Mechanism of Brass under Boundary Lubrication

The tribological tests of brass and steel are carried out on an in-situ tribometer. The Stribeck curve illustrates that the roughness and the wear rate as a whole reflect the lubrication regimes. Under boundary lubrication, a mathematical model based on positive pressure and roughness is established. A good agreement between the measurement and the prediction is found. According to the analysis of worn surface morphology, the main wear mechanism of brass is adhesive wear under boundary lubrication, which results in relatively high values of tribological parameters. The oxides strengthening layer is hardly generated under boundary lubrication until the experiment enters the mixed lubrication (ML) and the hydrodynamic lubrication (HL) regimes.