Wear of a rough disc in dry sliding contact with a smooth ball: experiment and modeling

The main objective of this work is to model wear of a disc which was subjected to dry contact with a ball in unidirectional sliding. Tribological tests of sliding pairs were carried out using a tribological tester T-11 in a ball-on disc configuration. Stationary balls made of 100Cr6 steel with a hardness of 62 ± 2 HRC co-acted with rotating discs with 42CrMo4 steel with a hardness of 40 ± 2HRC. Discs were machined by lapping, grinding, milling, and vapour blasting. The values of the Sq parameter of disc surfaces were between 0.1 and 5.86 µm. Wear volumes of the discs were lower for bigger roughness heights. The simulation of disc wear was conducted on the basis of the repetitive contact between sliding surfaces. Strong correlation was achieved between the modeled and measured volumetric wear levels.