Wear 263 (2007) 111116

Relationship between test severity and wear mode transition in micro-abrasive wear tests
R.C. Cozza a, , J.D.B. de Mello b , D.K. Tanaka a , R.M. Souza a
Surface Phenomena Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Polytechnic School of the University of S ao Paulo, Av. Prof. Mello Moraes, 2231, 05508-900 S ao Paulo, SP, Brazil b Tribology and Materials Laboratory, Mechanical Engineering College, Federal University of Uberl andia, 38400-902 Uberl andia, MG, Brazil Received 22 December 2006; received in revised form 12 January 2007; accepted 12 January 2007 Available online 23 May 2007
a

Abstract Recently, the micro-scale abrasive wear test has gained large acceptance in universities and research centers, being widely used in studies on the abrasive wear of materials. The purpose of this work is to relate a quantity called test severity (Stest ) with the abrasive wear mode transition. The analysis took into consideration the hardness of the materials; the contact pressure (P) between the specimen and the ball and the equipment conguration (xed-ball or free-ball). Tests were conducted with balls of AISI 52100 steel and specimens of ISO P20 cemented carbide (WC-Co) and AISI M2 tool steel. The abrasive slurry was prepared with black silicon carbide (SiC) particles (average particle size of 5 m) and distilled water. The results were analyzed in plots of Stest and Ag /Ap as a function of test time (t) and V as a function of P, where Ag is the projected area fraction with grooving abrasion; Ap the total projected area and V is the volume of the worn crater. The results allowed observing that the value of Stest decreased from the beginning to the end of all tests. When the results obtained with xed-ball and free-ball equipment were compared, this decrease in Stest was similar in the case of the WC-Co specimen, for which the hardness of the specimen (Hs ) was larger than the hardness of the ball (Hb ). The decrease in Stest was different in the case of the AISI M2 specimen, for which Hs < Hb . Tests were also associated with a decrease in the ratio Ag /Ap as a function of test time. A transition from mixed mode into pure rolling abrasion occurred at similar test times in the cases with similar severity evolution and, for the AISI M2 specimen, occurred earlier for the condition with lower test severity. 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Micro-abrasive wear testing; Wear modes; Rolling abrasion; Grooving abrasion; Test severity

1. Introduction In micro-scale abrasion wear tests, a rotating ball is forced against the tested specimen, in the presence of an abrasive slurry, and the wear behavior is analyzed based on the dimensions of the crater formed during the test. This test has been applied in the study of the abrasive wear of metallic [15] and non-metallic [615] materials and, depending on the equipment conguration, it is possible to apply normal loads (FN ) from 0.01 N [16,17] to 5 N [1,2,4,11] and ball rotational speeds (n) up to 525 rpm [2]. Two wear modes are observed during micro-scale abrasion wear tests: rolling abrasion results when the abrasive particles roll in the ball/specimen contact region, while grooving abrasion is observed when the abrasive particles slide in the contact region

[4,11,16,17]. Additionally, rolling abrasion and grooving abrasion can be generated simultaneously [1,2,4,16,17]. The type of wear mode has a signicant effect on the wear rate of a tribologic system [4,13]. In this work, the product Pv [18] of the contact pressure (P) and the sliding velocity (v) was dened as test severity (Stest ), as shown in Eq. (1). This denition is different from that previously presented in the micro-abrasive studies conducted by Adachi and Hutchings [16,17]. Stest = Pv (1)

For h D, where h is the crater depth and D is the diameter of the ball, the contact pressure may be calculated using Eqs. (2) or (3): P= FN Ap (2)

Corresponding author. Tel.: +55 11 3091 9860. E-mail address: ronaldo.cozza@poli.usp.br (R.C. Cozza).

0043-1648/$ see front matter 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.wear.2007.01.099

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Fig. 1. Detail of the ball and specimen assembly in the micro-scale abrasive equipment with (a) xed-ball conguration [20]; (b) free-ball conguration [3,5].

P=

FN As

(3)

Table 1 Hardness of the materials Material Specimen ISO P20 cemented carbide (WC-Co) AISI M2 tool steel AISI 52100 steel SiC Hardness (GPa) [HV] 11.7 [1193] 6.4 [652] 8.4 [856] 18.519 [18861937]

where Ap = d2 /4 is the total projected area; As = Dh [19] the area of the spherical surface of the worn crater; d is the projected area diameter. For the condition h D, the value of d is such that Ap As and the values of P calculated through Eqs. (2) and (3) are similar. In this work, the contact pressure was calculated using Eq. (2). This work presents a study on the inuence of the test severity (Stest ) on the abrasive wear mode transition. The hardness of the materials and the equipment conguration (xed-ball and free-ball) were also considered in the analysis. 2. Experimental procedure 2.1. Micro-scale abrasive wear equipments Two equipments were used in the micro-scale abrasive wear tests: (i) an equipment with xed-ball conguration (Fig. 1a), which was designed and assembled [1,2,20,21] with differences from commercial xed-ball equipment [4,68,11,16,2231] and (ii) a commercial free-ball equipment [3,5] (Fig. 1b) similar to those found in the literature [14,22,25,3236]. In the rst case, balls with a hole were used and the nut shown in Fig. 1a was responsible for xing the ball onto the shaft and transferring movement to the ball. This conguration eliminates the relative movement between the shaft and the ball and, theoretically, imposes mechanical restriction for ball movement in the direction parallel to the normal load [2,20]. 2.2. Materials Two materials were analyzed in the tests: commercial ISO P20 cemented carbide (WC-Co) and AISI M2 tool steel. In both cases, the area available for the tests was triangular, with 16 mm edges. Balls made of AISI 52100 steel were used and presented a diameter of 25.4 mm (1 ). Fig. 2 presents the microstructures of the AISI M2 tool steel (Fig. 2a), ISO P20 cemented carbide (WC-Co) (Fig. 2b) and AISI 52100 steel (Fig. 2c) [2,21]. The abrasive used was black silicon carbide (SiC), from Alcoa, with average particle size of 5 m [37]. Fig. 3 [37] presents a scanning electron micrograph of the abrasive used

Ball Abrasive particles

in this work (Fig. 3a) and its particle size distribution (Fig. 3b). The abrasive slurry was prepared as a mixture of 25% of SiC and 75% of distilled water, by volume. This mixture results in 1.045 g of SiC/cm3 of distilled water [1,2,20,21]. Table 1 presents the hardness of the materials used in this work (specimens, balls and abrasive) [1,2,21]. 2.3. Wear tests Table 2 shows the conditions selected for the experiments with the xed-ball equipment conguration. The normal force was 1.25 N, and the ball rotational speed was n = 37.6 rpm, which was previously selected by Trezona et al. [4]. This value of n and the ball diameter (25.4 mm) result in a tangential sliding velocity at the external diameter of the ball of v = 0.05 m/s. For both specimen materials, tests were run for six values of sliding distance (s), 8, 15, 20, 25, 35 and 40 m, and four repetitions were conducted for each value of s. Table 3 presents the conditions selected for the tests with the free-ball equipment conguration. The shaft rotational speed was 150 rpm, which provides a value of n = 82.7 rpm for the rotational speed of the ball and a tangential sliding velocity at the external diameter of v = 0.11 m/s [3,5]. Three repetitions were conducted for each condition of the free-ball tests, for sliding distances of 2.2, 8.8, 19.8, 33 and 46.2 m. The abrasive feed rate was one drop each 5 s for condition 1, which was different from the others shown in Table 3, due to the short duration of this test condition (20 s). All tests were conducted without interruption and the abrasive slurry was continuously agitated and manually fed to the ball/specimen contact, with the help of a dropper. Different values of normal load and rotational speed of the ball can affect the results of micro-scale abrasion wear tests [11], but the characteristics of the free-ball and xed-ball equipments

R.C. Cozza et al. / Wear 263 (2007) 111116 Table 2 Conditions selected for the tests with the xed-ball equipment Condition selected Normal force (N) Ball rotational speed (rpm) Sliding distance (m) Test time Abrasive slurry supply Number of repetitions 1 1.25 37.6 8 2 min 40 s 1 drop/10 s 4 2 1.25 37.6 15 5 min 1 drop/10 s 4 3 1.25 37.6 20 6 min 40 s 1 drop/10 s 4 4 1.25 37.6 25 8 min 20 s 1 drop/10 s 4 5 1.25 37.6 35 11 min 40 s 1 drop/10 s 4 6

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1.25 37.6 40 13 min 20 s 1 drop/10 s 4

used in this work prevented the selection of exactly the same test conditions for the experiments conducted in both equipment congurations. 3. Results and discussion 3.1. Effect of test severity on the abrasive wear mode transition Fig. 4a and b present the denition of the projected area fraction with grooving abrasion (Ag ) and the total projected area (Ap ), respectively. In Fig. 4, both areas were dened using the same wear crater, which was generated after a test with the free-ball equipment, on the WC-Co specimen and for a sliding distance of 8.8 m. Fig. 5a presents the evolution of the test severity (Stest ) as a function of the test time, for the tests conducted on the WCCo specimen, and Fig. 5b on the M2 tool steel specimen, for both equipment congurations. In order to explain the results in Fig. 5, it is important to observe that in micro-scale abrasion tests the contact pressure decreases with the test time, since the normal force remains constant during the test and the area Ap increases (Eq. (2)). The contact pressure decrease is responsible for the gradual decrease in test severity. The test severity calculated for the M2 specimen, for which the hardness of the specimen (Hs ) is lower than the hardness of the ball (Hb ), was higher in the xed-ball equipment than in the free-ball equipment (Fig. 5b). On other hand, with the WCCo specimen (where Hs > Hb ), the Stest values were practically equivalent for both equipment congurations (Fig. 5a). Fig. 6a presents the ratio Ag /Ap as a function of the test time. A general trend was observed in all cases. Initial test conditions always resulted in craters presenting evidences of both grooving and rolling abrasion. Fig. 6b and c present two wear craters, for the conditions Ag /Ap = 0, where pure rolling of abrasive particles
Table 3 Conditions selected for the tests with the free-ball equipment Condition selected Normal force (N) Drive shaft rotation (rpm) Ball rotational speed (rpm) Sliding distance (m) Test time Abrasive slurry supply Number of repetitions 1 0.39 150 82.7 2.2 20 s 1 drop/5 s 3 2 0.39 150 82.7 8.8 1 min 20 s 1 drop/15 s 3

was observed, and 0 < Ag /Ap < 1, where both rolling and grooving abrasion were observed. Ag /Ap = 1 refers to a condition with only grooving abrasion, but this condition was not obtained in the tests. Fig. 6a indicates that test evolution was always associated with a decrease in the projected area fraction with grooving abrasion up to a point that pure rolling abrasion was observed in many cases. In general, results in Fig. 6a may be explained by considering that in the beginning of the test the contact pressure is relatively high, and in this condition it is more difcult for the abrasive particles to roll than in conditions with lower P. Thus, the area fraction of grooving abrasion is higher in the beginning of the test than in the end. Fig. 6 also indicates that, in the case of the WC-Co specimen, for which both equipment congurations provided similar test severities, the transition from grooving abrasion to rolling abrasion occurred approximately at the same test time (500 s). However, for the case with distinct test severities (M2 tool steel specimen), the abrasive wear mode transition occurred earlier for the condition with lower test severity. These results are in agreement with the ideas that associate lower pressures (lower test severities) with higher tendencies for the occurrence of pure rolling abrasion. 3.2. Relationship between wear volume and contact pressure An interesting result was obtained when the data obtained in this work was organized in a plot of the wear volume (V) as a function of the contact pressure (Fig. 7). The data seem to describe two characteristic curves, one for the free-ball equipment and another for the xed-ball equipment. Care should be taken in the analysis of Fig. 7, since the wear volume seems to decrease with contact pressure and, consequently, with test severity. However, test time was not directly considered in the axes and, in conjunction with different severities, low pressure

3 0.39 150 82.7 19.8 3 min 1 drop/15 s 3

4 0.39 150 82.7 33 5 min 1 drop/15 s 3

5 0.39 150 82.7 46.2 7 min 1 drop/15 s 3

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Fig. 3. Characteristics of the SiC abrasive [37]. (a) Micrograph of the abrasive particles and (b) particle size distribution [37].

Fig. 2. Microestruture: (a) AISI M2 tool steel, (b) ISO P20 cemented carbide (WC-Co) and (c) AISI 52100 steel [21]. Images obtained by optical microscope [21].

points are related to longer tests, for which the wear volume is higher. Fig. 7 indicates that higher wear volumes were obtained with the xed-ball equipment. This result was not expected, since the velocity was lower in the experiments in the xed-ball equipment. Further research is still necessary in order to explain the results in Fig. 7. However, it is important to mention that some conditions were different in the experiments conducted in both equipments (Tables 2 and 3), including velocity; abrasive slurry feed rate and also equipment conguration. In the last case, it is possible to suppose that, for the xed-ball equipment, the restric-

Fig. 4. ISO P20 cemented carbide (WC-Co). Wear craters obtained in the freeball equipment conguration. Denition of (a) Ag and (b) Ap , for s = 8.8 m.

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Fig. 7. Plot of the wear volume as a function of the contact pressure, for both equipment congurations and specimen materials.

tion imposed to ball movement in the direction parallel to the load may reduce the rate at which abrasive particles penetrate the ball/specimen interface. 4. Conclusions The results obtained in this work indicated that:
Fig. 5. Test severity (Stest ) evolution as a function of the test time (t), for the tests conducted on the (a) ISO P20 cemented carbide (WC-Co) and (b) M2 tool steel, with the xed-ball and free-ball equipment congurations.

(1) The hardness of the materials and the equipment conguration (xed-ball or free-ball) can affect the test severity. (2) The test severity had an important effect on the occurrence of the abrasive wear modes and their transitions. Lower test severities (lower pressures; higher test times) favored the occurrence of rolling abrasion and higher test severities, grooving abrasion. (3) For the WC-Co specimen, the evolution of test severity as a function of time was similar for the conditions selected in the tests in the free-ball and xed-ball equipments. For this specimen, a similar trend was also observed in terms of the transition between the abrasive wear modes, which occurred approximately at the same test time. (4) In terms of the AISI M2 specimen, lower test severities were calculated for the tests in the free-ball equipment, which was associated with an earlier transition into pure rolling abrasion. References
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Fig. 6. (a) Ag /Ap ratio as a function of the test time, for both equipment congurations and materials specimen. (b) Rolling abrasion, for the condition Ag /Ap = 0 and (c) rolling abrasion + grooving abrasion, for the condition 0 < Ag /Ap < 1. (b) and (c) M2 tool steel specimen, for s = 46.2 m and s = 4 m, respectively.

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