Failure Analysis and Design

Module 5: Wear and corrosion

 Introduction of Wear
• Undesirable removal of material from operating solid surface is known
as wear.
• There are two definitions :
(1) Zero wear : Removal of material which causes polishing of material
surfaces may be known as "Zero wear". It may increase performance. It is
for betterment, so it is not undesirable.
• Zero wear is basically a polishing process in which the asperities of the
contacting surfaces are gradually worn off until a very fine, smooth
surface develops.
• Generally, “polishing-in” wear is
desirable for better life of tribo-pair.
Fig. shows polished surface of
helical gear which occurs due to
slow loss of metal at a rate that will
have a little affect on the
satisfactory performance within the
life of the gears.
2) Measurable wear : Removal of material from surface that increases
vibration; noise or surface roughness may be treated an "Measureable
wear".
• Often we measure wear in volume/mass reduction.
• Undesirable removal of material occurs in measurable wear.
• Measurable wear refers to a loss of material which must be counted to
estimate the life of tribo-pair.
• The extent of measurable wear depends on the lubrication regime, the
nature of the load, the surface hardness and roughness, and on the
contaminants in the lubricating oil.
• A typical example of measurable
wear in helical gear is shown in
Fig. which is typically known as
pitting wear.
• Pitting is a surface fatigue failure which occurs due to repeated loading
of tooth surface and the contact stress exceeding the surface fatigue
strength of the material.
• Material in the fatigue region gets removed and a pit is formed.
• The pit itself will cause stress concentration and soon the pitting spreads
to adjacent region till the whole surface is covered with pits.
• Subsequently, higher impact load resulting from pitting may cause
fracture of already weakened tooth.
• Sometimes impurities in materials provide nucleus for crack generation
as shown in Fig. 3.1(c).
• Fig. 3.1(d) shows merger of generated cracks, which finally detaches
from the surface as shown in Fig. 3.1(e).
• Such formation of pits (removal of material) comes under measurable
wear.
Formation of pit.
• Many time the change in surface profile alters the optimum value of
clearance and reduces load capacity of machine components.
• Let us consider Fig. 3.2 of worn out rollers. Sliding to rolling ratio for
these worn out rollers increase with wear rate and usage of rolling
element bearing loses its purpose.
• This Fig. shows variation in bearing clearance due to abrasion of the
bearing surface.
• With increase in bearing clearance load capacity of bearing decreases as
shown in Fig. 3.4. X-axis of Fig. 3.4 represents radial clearance which is
given by 0.1% of radius multiplied with the factor depicting increase in
clearance due to wear.
• Removal of material from operating solid surfaces by solid particles
depends upon Load, Velocity, Environment, and Materials.
• Removal of material from operating solid surface by Fluid (liquid/gas)
depends upon Velocity, pressure, Environment and material.
• As wear increases power losses increases, oil consumption increases, rate
of component replacement also inreases.
• Ultimately, it reduces efficiency of the system.
• Therefore, as far as possible wear should be minimized.
 Wear Mechanisms
• Wear can be classified based on the ways that the frictional junctions are
broken, that is, elastic displacement, plastic displacement, cutting,
destruction of surface films and destruction of bulk material.
• Common wear mechanisms are:
• Abrasive Wear : polishing, scouring, scratching, grinding, gouging.
• Adhesive Wear : galling, scuffing, scoring.
• Cavitation (interaction with fluid)
• Corrosive Wear (Chemical nature)
• Erosive Wear
• Fatigue : delamination
• Fretting Wear.
 Abrasive Wear
• Adhesive wear is very common in metals.
• It is heavily dependent on the mutual affinity between the materials.
• Let us take example of steel and indium [Fig. 3.5(a)]. When steel pin
under load is pushed [Fig. 3.5(b)] in indium block, and subsequently
retracted [Fig. 3.5(c)], a thin layer of indium transferred on the steel pin.

• This behaviour demonstrates the loss of indium material, which occurs

due to high value of adhesive force between steel and indium.
• If steel pin is subjected to normal load as well as tangential load [Fig.
3.5(d)] then severe wear of indium material occurs.
• By introducing a thin layer of lubricant at the interface of indium and
metal, the severe wear can be reduced to mild wear.
• Shear strength of lubricant layer is much smaller than shear strength of
indium metal, therefore weak interface between steel and indium
occurs which can be sheared easily and wear rate reduces to mild
value.
 Steps leading to Adhesive Wear
• It is well known that macroscopically smooth surfaces are rough on
micro scale as shown in Fig. 3.7(a) and Fig. 3.7(b).
• When two such surfaces are brought together as shown in Fig. 3.7(c),
contact is made at relatively few isolated asperities.
• As a normal load is applied, the local pressure at the asperities becomes
extremely high.
• In the absence of surface films the surfaces would adhere but a small
amount of contaminant prevents adhesion under purely normal loading.
• However, relative tangential motion at the interface disperses the
contaminant films at the points of contact, and welding of the junctions
can take place.
• Continued sliding causes the junctions to be sheared and new junctions
to be formed.
• The amount of wear depends on the position at which the junction is
sheared as shown in Fig. 3.6(a) to (c).
• If shearing occurs at the interface then wear is negligible.
• If shear takes place away from the interface then metal is transferred
from one surface to the other.
• With further rubbing, some of the transferred material is detached to
form loose wear particles.
• We can summarize these steps as
 Deformation of contacting asperities Fig. 3.8(a).
 Removal (abrasion) of protective oxide surface film.
 Formation of adhesive junctions Fig. 3.8(b).
 Failure of junction by pulling out large lumps and transfer of
materials
 Abrasive Wear
• Abrasive wear, sometimes called cutting wear, occurs when hard
particles slide and roll under pressure, across the tooth surface.
• Hard particle sources are: dirt in the housing, sand or scale from castings,
metal wear particles, and particles introduced into housing when filling
with lube oil.
• Scratching is a form of abrasive wear, characterized by short scratch-like
lines in the direction of sliding.
• This type of damage is usually light and can be stopped by removing the
contaminants that caused it.
• Fig. 3.16(a) shows abrasive wear of a hardened gear.
 Abrasive Wear
• Abrasive wear is caused by the passage of relatively hard
particles/asperities over a surface. Following are few well-known
reasons of abrasive wear mechanisms
• Micro-cutting : sharp particle or hard asperity cuts the softer surface.
Cut material is removed as wear debris.
• Micro-fracture : generally occurs in brittle, e.g. ceramic material.
Fracture of the worn surface occurs due to merging of a number of
smaller cracks.
• Micro fatigue : When a ductile material is abraded by a blunt
particle/asperity, the worn surface is repeatedly loaded and unloaded,
and failure occurs due to fatigue.
• Removal of material grains : Happens in materials (i.e. ceramics)
having relatively week grain boundaries.
 Abrasive Wear
Two other mechanisms, very similar to abrasive wear are :

- Erosive wear : Impact of particles against a solid surface is known as

erosive wear.

- Cavitation wear : Localized impact of fluid against a surface during the

collapse of bubbles is known as cavitation wear.
 Corrosive Wear
• Chemical reaction + Mechanical action = Corrosive wear
• The fundamental cause of Corrosive wear is a chemical reaction
between the material and a corroding medium which can be either a
chemical reagent, reactive lubricant or even air.
• Understanding the mechanisms of corrosive is important to reduce this
kind of wear.
• Let us consider a jaw coupling used for connecting shaft and motor, as
shown in Fig. 3.20.
• This coupling is corroded, due to moist
environment and its outer dimensions
have increased.
• If we rub this coupling with fingers,
brown colour debris will get detached
from the coupling surface.
• In other words, after chemical reactions,
mechanical action is essential to initiate
corrosive wear.
 Stages of corrosive wear
• Sliding surfaces chemically interact with environment (humid/industrial
vapor/acid)
• A reaction product (like oxide, chlorides, copper sulphide)
• Wearing away of reaction product film.
• The most corrosion films passivate (Fig. 3.21) or cease to grow beyond
a certain thickness.
• This is favourable as corrosion process stops its own.
• But most corrosion films are brittle & porous, and mechanical sliding
wears away the film.
• The formation and subsequent loss of sacrificial (Fig. 3.22) or short
life-time corrosion films is the most common form of corrosive wear.
• Sliding surfaces may wear by chemically reacting with the partner
surface or the environment, or both.
• The oxide layers resulting from reactions with the environment are
typically 10 microns thick, and they may have a protective role unless
the thickness tends to grow during the cyclic contact process.
• If the oxide layer grows, it becomes liable to break in brittle fracture,
producing wear particles.
• Hard, broken-off oxide particles may then profoundly affect subsequent
wear life as abrasive agents. If soft, ductile debris results, it may form a
protective layer on the surface.
 Fretting Wear
• It refers to small amplitude(1 to 300 μm), with high frequency
oscillatory movement mainly originated by vibration.
• This generally occurs in mechanical assemblies (press fit parts, rivet /
bolt joints, strands of wire ropes, rolling element bearings), in which
relative sliding on micron level is allowed.
• It is very difficult to eliminate such movements and the result is fretting.
• Fretting wear and fretting fatigue are present in almost all machinery
and are the cause of total failure of some otherwise robust components.
 Fretting Wear
• Fretting occurs wherever short amplitude reciprocating sliding between
contacting surfaces(Fig. 3.32) is sustained for a large number of cycles.
• The centre(Fig. 3.32) of the contact may remain stationary while the
edges reciprocate with an amplitude of the order of 1 micron to cause
fretting damage.
• One of the characteristic features of fretting is that the produced wear
debris is often retained within the contact due to small amplitude
sliding.
• The accumulating wear debris gradually separates both surfaces(Fig.
3.33) and, in some cases, may contribute to the acceleration of the wear
process by abrasion.
• The process of fretting wear can be further accelerated by temperature.
• Reciprocating movements as short as 0.1 micron in amplitude can
cause failure of the component when the sliding is maintained for one
million cycles or more.
Fretting Wear