Paper presented to the 10th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Florida, 14-16 July 2014.
Scuffing is a form of surface damage and wear that occurs
in inadequately-lubricated tribosystems that causes catastrophic
damage on tribological surfaces and usually results in the need
for part replacement. As a major cause of failure in automotive
and other mechanical components, scuffing has been the focus
of much research to elucidate its fundamental underpinnings.
One of the characteristics of scuffing is an increase in the
coefficient of friction and in the surface temperature of the
contacting parts. In this paper, we report on ongoing numerical
work focused on modeling the transient temperature rise that
occurs in a workpiece during a ball-on-disk tribometer test. In
such a test, a load is applied to a stationary ball which is placed
in contact with a rotating disk. Inputs to the numerical thermal
model come from experimental and numerical contact
mechanics tests. Results for both the bulk disk temperature, as
well as the surface flash temperature under different loading
conditions are presented and discussed.