On the influence of surface roughness on the wear behavior in the running-in phase in mixed-lubricated contacts with the finite element method

Abstract To determine the influence of the surface roughness on the friction and wear behavior, there are only limited experimental possibilities available. Due to the manufacturing process, the variation of the roughness also causes a change of the waviness and of the boundary layer of a surface. Thus, the roughness cannot be taken in isolation. It is therefore the objective of the present work to investigate the influence of the surface roughness on the running-in behavior with a numerical model, using the finite element method. All calculations have been carried out with the finite element software ABAQUS in combination with the programming language PYTHON. They are based on a mixed-lubrication model, which was extended by a wear routine. This routine enables the calculation of local wear depths on both tribological partners in non-lubricated and lubricated regimes. For modelling the local wear depths, the surface nodes of the finite element mesh were adjusted by a modified wear law based on Archard. In first investigations, the influence of different manufacturing processes on the wear behavior was determined.