Application and conceptual explanation of an energy-based approach for the modelling and prediction of sliding wear

Establishing an accurate predictive model for wear will result in major improvements in the efficiency, lifetime, cost and performance of many engineering systems. The authors have previously proposed a practical energy-based model to describe the tribological damage using energy dissipation. In this work, the capacity of this method to simplify the complex wear phenomenon was determined, and the applicability of this method to forecast the wear behaviour of materials was investigated. The wear results for a W–Cu electrical contact composite were utilised to determine the practical value of the model. Numerical integration of friction force–distance diagrams was used to evaluate the energy dissipation. Linear and non-linear least squares methods were applied to find the optimal curve fitting. It is shown that this model can be applied in two general forms: (1) a graphical method and (2) an explicit formulation. Both of these forms are shown to be capable of providing the necessary information, based on a limited number of initial tests, to predict unknown wear data (volume loss, lifetime, energy) without the need for morphological observations.