Finite element based simulation of dry sliding wear

Abstract

In order to predict wear and eventually the life-span of complex mechanical systems, several hundred thousand operating cycles have to be simulated. Therefore, a finite element (FE) post-processor is the optimum choice, considering the computational expense. A wear simulation approach based on Archard's wear law is implemented in an FE post-processor that works in association with a commercial FE package, ABAQUS, for solving the general deformable–deformable contact problem. Local wear is computed and then integrated over the sliding distance using the Euler integration scheme. The wear simulation tool works in a loop and performs a series of static FE-simulations with updated surface geometries to get a realistic contact pressure distribution on the contacting surfaces. It will be demonstrated that this efficient approach can simulate wear on both two-dimensional and three-dimensional surface topologies. The wear on both the interacting surfaces is computed using the contact pressure distribution from a two-dimensional or three-dimensional simulation, depending on the case. After every wear step the geometry is re-meshed to correct the deformed mesh due to wear, thus ensuring a fairly uniform mesh for further processing. The importance and suitability of such a wear simulation tool will be enunciated in this paper.