Finite Element
Finite Element
Finite Element
Journal of Tribology Copyright © 2000 by ASME APRIL 2000, Vol. 122 Õ 381
like carbon 共DLC兲 coating is considered as a model coating. This where P is the normal load per unit length of cylindrical indenter.
coating is characterized by high hardness and low friction. A rela- The normal pressure is applied to the FE model as a piecewise
tively low E alloy 共Ti–6Al–4V alloy兲 was selected as the model stepped surface pressure normal to the face of each element. For a
substrate material. A hardness gradient can be produced in this large number of elements this approximates the actual pressure
alloy by a plasma nitriding process that results in a nitrogen dif- distribution given in Eq. 共1兲. The tangential traction due to fric-
fusion layer 关16兴. The DLC film can be deposited using ion-beam tion, F(x), along the contact width is accordingly calculated by
deposition which has been found to produce high quality and ad-
herent DLC films 关13兴. In the model, friction is generated by F共 x 兲⫽ f N共 x 兲 共 for 兩 x 兩 ⭐a 兲 , (2)
assuming an elastic steel cylindrical surface sliding on the duplex where f is the coefficient of friction. This surface traction is ap-
DLC/nitrided Ti–6Al–4V alloy. Experimental aspects on this sys- plied to the FE model using the stepped approximation of N(x).
tem can be found elsewhere 关13,15,17,18兴. Note that the Cartesian coordinate system (x,y,z) is centered
The present calculations are divided into two groups: 共i兲 a sub- on the coating/substrate interface, therefore z/a⫽0 corresponds to
strate with a gradient in yield strength while the elastic modulus is the coating/substrate interface, not the contact surface. This is
constant, and 共ii兲 an interface with linearly graded elastic modu- important when interpreting results later in the paper. The geom-
lus. Results from group 共i兲 calculations are presented as a function etry of the half-space considered in the FE analysis is dependent
of coating thickness, external contact stress, coefficient of friction upon the value of half width, a. It has been shown previously that
and elastic modulus of coating, in order to obtain an insight into the effect of loading on the contact area becomes insignificant at a
the influence of these parameters on the initiation of yielding in horizontal distance of approximately four to six times the contact
the substrate during indentation and friction. Group 共ii兲 calcula- width of the indentation and a vertical distance approximately
tions are conducted by assuming an array of linearly graded elas- four to ten times the contact width of the indentation 关20兴. More
tic modulus in order to investigate its effect on the stress distribu- recent work has shown this effect to be even less at 20 times the
tion in the coating/substrate region. contact width. In this analysis, the horizontal and vertical dis-
tances are chosen to be 20a. It is assumed that the displacements
2 Finite Element Modeling of Indentation and Friction of each nodal point located on the defined boundary are con-
of a Cylindrical Surface on Flat Surface strained to zero. The half-space is discretized using an array of
2000 to 3000 two-dimensional eight-node isoparametric quadrilat-
Establishment of Finite Element Model. Consider a hard eral elements. To obtain accurate stress distributions on the con-
coating bonded perfectly to a semi-infinite body of the substrate tact area and highly stressed zone near the contact area, the finite
so that the combination of coating and substrate can be assumed element mesh of the half-space was refined in this region. The
to be a single bulk medium. An elastic surface, assumed to be an horizontal and vertical dimensions of the mesh beneath the con-
infinitely long circular cylinder, is indented into the coating and is tact region are 0.039a and 0.0625t 共t is the thickness of the coat-
represented by the resulting Hertzian contact stress distribution ing兲, respectively. The multifunction finite element program
between the indenter and half space with a half-width of 10 m. ANSYS共5.4兲 was used for calculation and processing of the
This value of the contact radius is reasonable for flat surfaces as results.
those pertaining to polished thin film surfaces 关12兴. During inden-
tation of the cylinder on the flat coated surface, the semi-infinite Evaluation of the Finite Element Model. To evaluate the
body is in the condition of plane strain. The indentation condition accuracy of the finite element model, a system was assumed com-
and corresponding coordinate system are shown in Fig. 1. This posed of a steel cylindrical indenter and Ti–6Al–4V alloy sub-
E共GPa兲
Indenter 共steel兲 207 0.31
Coating 共DLC兲* 350 0.3
Substrate 共Ti–6Al–4V兲 113.7 0.321
*Reference 关30兴
4 Conclusions
Fig. 11 The effect of coatingÕsubstrate elastic modulus ratio
„ E c Õ E s … on the location of substrate initial yielding point „ f The initial yielding behavior of a coating/functionally graded
Ä0.1 and t Õ R Ä0.01… substrate system under indentation and friction was investigated