NATIONAL INSTITUE OF TECHNOLOGY HAMIRPUR

A Presentation On Friction in Metals

By: Ajay Goyal Ajay Philip Rahul Singh Naveen kumar Kulbhushan Phogat

Frictional Behaviour of Metals

Metallic friction occurs due to shearing of welded metallic junctions formed between contacting surfaces In the absence of contaminant films these junctions are formed easily and the friction is very high. Clean metals exhibit high coefficient of friction

Theories of Metallic Friction

From the research conducted by Amonton, Coulomb, Hirn, Bowden and Tabor following results were obtained: 1.Frictional force is: directly proportional to load applied. independent of area of surfaces in contact. independent of velocity of sliding

Theories of Metallic Friction Continued..

2. Effect of velocity, surface area and load different in lubricated & unlubricated surfaces.

3. Friction force in metals is caused due to adhesion and deformation forces.

Basic Friction modes in Metals

Friction on virgin surfaces Friction on clean oxidised surfaces Boundary friction Transition zone Pure boundary friction Boundary hydrodynamic friction Hydrodynamic friction

Virgin surfaces
These surfaces have very high values for coefficient of friction

These types of surfaces are mainly encountered

with adhesion friction.

Metallic bondings are very strong

Clean oxidized surfaces

Less coefficient of friction as compared to virgin surfaces. Coefficient of friction depends on type and properties of oxide films.

Boundary friction transition zone

It is characterized by the presence of a very thin layer of interstitial phase between the surfaces.

Frictional magnitude is in between clean surface

friction and boundary friction

Pure boundary Friction

In this a very thin layer of transition phase separates the two surfaces.

This type of friction depends on following properties: 1. Physical nature, state and properties of hard surfaces, 2. Structure and properties of oil molecules, 3. Experimental conditions like pressure, & temperature.

Boundary Hydrodynamic Friction

It shows the transition between boundary friction to hydrodynamic friction

Hydrodynamic Friction
It is observed in presence of interposing layer of a lubricant It is largely dependent of the liquid viscosity

Factors Influencing Friction In Metals

Friction in metals are affected mainly by the following factors : Degree of metallic nature Oxide film formation Alloying Physically Adsorbed gases Atmosphere that the metal is surrounded Structural Effects Crystal transformation Orientation effects Temperature Interfacial Potential

Degree of Metallic Nature

All metals in the periodic table in their clean state exhibits a stick- slip behavior when they slides over each other This occurs due to strong metallic bonding

Oxide film formation

Most clean metals like Cu, Fe , Al, Ni, Zn etc forms oxides on their surfaces. These oxides prevent the metal surfaces from being in direct contact with each other thereby reducing the adhesive forces . This reduces the coefficient of friction in metals

Oxide film formation in Copper

Dr Whitehead (1950) studied the frictional behavior

due to the oxide film formation in copper.

He found that the coefficient of friction remained

independent at a value of 1.6 of load for all loads

above 100gms Coefficient of friction reduces which reduction in load and reaches a value of 0.4 for a load of about 10gms.

Oxide formation in Aluminum

The coefficient of friction remains constant at a high value of 1.2 for a load between 10-2 to 104 gms This is because the oxide film breaks up and there is characteristic metallic welding even at smallest loads

Alloying Effects
Small proportions of alloying elements can cause marked changes in frictional properties of metals
Some alloying elements increases friction while some others reduces it Main reason for change in friction is surface segregation

 Addition of 5 weight percentage of chromium iron can increase the coefficient of friction from 0.5 to 1. When there is difference in size between solute and solvent atoms there occurs a tendency to squeeze out the solute atoms out of the parent lattice to reduce energy There are situations where solute atoms cannot be squeezed out of the parent lattice In such situations there is a difference in atomic size and a strain is produced in the crystal lattice

 This strain in bulk lattice influences the frictional behaviour of metals This is due to the fact that it influences the shear properties and resistance to shear the metal The greater the strain, the greater the resistance to shear the metal

Physically Adsorbed Gases

Adsorption is explained as the adhesion of atoms, ions, molecules into a surface. It creates a film of adsorbate on the surface of adsorbent. The static friction coefficient for most metals decreases with increasing concentration of adsorbate. This happens because the adhesion between surfaces gets greatly reduced even for a small layer of adsorbate on the solid metal surface.

Effect of Atmospheric gases

Atmospheric gases can also cause change in frictional characteristics of metals This occurs largely due to chemisorption activity of gas molecules on each metal surface The coefficient of friction decrease with increase in pressure

 The frictional characteristics mainly depends upon the metal and the atmospheric gas molecules In the experiments of Bowden and Hughes the friction of copper, gold and nickel were not affected by hydrogen and nitrogen while Buckley reported that the friction of tungsten was decreased by hydrogen

Structural Effects
Hexagonal closed packed metals exhibit low coefficient of friction than a Face Centred Cubic Metal. Hexagonal metals have limited number of slip planes. Accordingly when hexagonal metals like cobalt deforms by slippage when pressed against each other leaving many air gaps at each other. In contrast cubic metals having 12 slip planes have no such air gaps and for this reason the contact is stronger and friction is hence higher

Crystal Transformation
Many metals exhibit more than one crystal structure Change in crystal structure can cause marked difference in frictional behaviour Cobalt transforms from HCP structure to FCC at 411 degree Celcius,thereby showing increased coefficient of friction

Orientation Effects
The crystallographic orientation in a metal can also influence the frictional properties of metals. The frictional coefficients of metals are usually lowest for highest atomic density, low surface energy planes in the metal In a BCC system this is {110} surface In FCC system it is the { 111} surface For HCP system it is the {0001} surface

 When 2 dissimilar metals are brought in sliding contact, adhesion & frictional forces measured are less than that in case of like materials of same crystallographic orientation in contact It has been experimentally proved that adhesive forces for copper in contact with cobalt is half that for copper in contact with nickel

Effect of Temperature
In general friction decreases when temperature is raised, but the effect is slight even at 1000 degrees An exceptional case is that occurs in case of gold where there is little change in coefficient of friction untill 600 degrees after it raises to a high value

This occurs due to pronounced softening of gold at this temperature, so that metal flows readily and the sliding surface would weld together over a large area

Effect of Temperature
Case Study:
Various metals have been examined at temperature ranging between 25K to a room temperature: Specimens were gold , silver , copper , molybdenum etc. Observations: 1. With FCC metals at room temperature, coefficient of friction was quite high (=2.5). When the temperature is lowered from room temperature coefficient of friction decreases to 1.5.This will also lead in work hardening rate. 2. With BCC metals similar change at low temperature is observed but coefficient of friction was lower than FCC at lower temperature i.e. =1.0 3. In hexagonal metals, behaviour of metals depends on the ductility of the metal. At lower temperatures coefficient of friction will reduce to a order of 0.5.

Effect of interfacial potential

In 1936, Bastow studied the friction of metals immersed in an electrolyte He observed that friction in immersed metals depended on concentration of ions deposited on the metal surface

Case study
Measurement of friction in platinum with changing interfacial potential: Platinum metal is immersed in a solution of sulphuric acid When the interfacial potential is made +1 volt the electrode surface becomes covered with monolayer of oxygen and if potential is made more, we have a region of oxygen over potential

 If the potential is reduced below 1 volt the monolayer of oxygen is reduced At a region of near 0 volt monolayer of hydrogen is deposited

Further decrease in ve potential hydrogen over potential occurs In the region of +1 volt which corresponds to oxygen deposition coefficient of friction was observed to be about 0.7

 As the potential is decreased, the monolayer of oxygen gets removed and coefficient of friction becomes 3.4 at 0.3 Volts

Still lowering the potential hydrogen deposition starts and coefficient of friction value falls to 2.3 Further lowering the potential, coefficient of friction decreases, but still have high value as compared to oxygen deposition

Metals sliding on polymers

Reduced friction can be observed when metals slides over polymers and vice versa This occurs due to the deposition of a transfer film of the polymer on the surface of the metal Studies shows that such a transfer film of polyethylene oxide was observed on iron surface after sliding

Metal films
We know that F= A.S where A- area of contact S- shear strength To reduce friction between surfaces we must make A & S small If we choose metal with low shear strength, it is usually soft, so that for a given load A becomes large If we choose a hard metal area of contact will be small but the shear strength will be large For this reason the coefficient of friction for most metals remains in the same range

 We can achieve a condition of reduced friction by depositing a very thin film of soft metal on the surface of the hard metal Provided the metallic film does not breakdown the shear strength S will be that of the softer metal

At the same time A remains small even for heavy loads, since the load is borne by the hard substrate
Friction decreases as thinner films are used. But the minimum thickness of the film should be upto 10-5 mm below which the layer wont be effective

Comparison between Metal films and Lubricating films

Metal films
Reduces friction Should be considerably thick to the order of 10-5 mm Does not obey Amontons law ie; with metallic films as load is decreased coefficient of friction decreases Gets worn away at faster rate

Lubricating films
Reduces friction Less thicker than metal films to be effective Obeys Amontons law Does not get worn away at easily

Variation of coefficient of friction with respect to temperature

Variation of coefficient of friction with respect to sliding velocity

Variation of coefficient of friction with respect to sliding velocity

References
Principles & Application of Tribology By Bharat Bhushan Surface effects of adhesion, friction, wear & Lubrication by Donald .H.Buckley Friction and lubrication of solids, Volume 1 By Frank Philip Bowden & David Tabor Engineering Tribology by G. Stachowiak & A.Batchelor

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