Experimentally verified prediction of friction coefficient and wear rate during running-in dry contact

When pristine solid surfaces experience sliding contact, the surface roughness undergoes various changes and deformations in a transient fashion giving rise to a nonlinear wear rate. During the first stage of the service life of the mechanical elements called running-in, this phenomenon occurs where many intertwined parameters interact in a complicated fashion. It is believed that the operating conditions of running-in largely impact the performance of a tribo-system. Thus, the ability to predict the variation of wear rate, friction coefficient, and surface asperities during running-in is important. To address this need, a model capable of predicting the variation of the aforementioned parameters is developed. To verify the predictions, the results are compared to pin-on-disk experiments. The comparison shows an acceptable agreement in the predicted and experimental data.