Numerical model to predict wear of dynamically loaded plain bearings

Wear resistance of dynamic system components is a major challenge in aeronautics. According the usage of the aircraft, off-centred dynamic loads can appear on shafts when rotating bodies are unbalanced. In literature, most of the wear studies applied to plain bearing consider static loads centred in the contact area. This article presents a study on the wear of a plain bearing submitted to off-centred dynamic loads in order to look for a better mastering of service life of plain bearing for their usage in severe aeronautic conditions. Boussinesq's equations were used to compute the pressure distribution and Archard's law was used to calculate the wear. The wear coefficients of the running-in and stable wear stages were defined experimentally. The evolution over time of the maximum wear depth and the size of the contact zone were validated with experimental results. The perspective of this work is to feed digital twins of dynamic systems in order to predict wear according aircraft usage.