Wear rate, frictional temperature, and energy consumption of steel 52100 with different microstructures during sliding

In a concerned tribological system, mechanical behavior such as friction and wear, microstructural evolution, and change in environmental temperature impact each other. A complete understanding of these interactions between the above factors is important for a tribological system to function well. In this study, the relationships among the wear rate, the frictional surface temperature, the heat consumption, and the friction energy consumption of steel 52100 with different microstructures during dry sliding were investigated using wear tests and theoretical approaches. The experimental results showed that the wear rate depends strongly on the thermal physical properties of the different microstructures due to their different energy consumptions during sliding. The calculations based on a frictional temperature field model were consistent with the experimental observations. C 2005 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.