A finite element model of a hard disk drive (HDD) is developed for simulating shock testing and head slap. Individual components of the disk drive are modeled using Hypermesh, a commercially available mesh generator. The following components are modeled: the base plate, the impact surface, the actuator arm, the suspension arm, the head gimbal assembly (HGA) and the disk. The boundary conditions and contact surfaces are defined in Hypermesh [1] prior to importing them to the solver, LS-Dyna [2], for the transient finite element solution. The solution calculates displacement, velocity, acceleration and stress at every time step.

Slip and fall accidents are a major occupational health concern. Important factors affecting shoe-floor friction is critical to identifying and resolving unsafe surfaces and designing. Experimental studies have indicated that several factors including floor roughness, sliding speed and shoe materials affect shoe-floor friction although the precise nature of the mechanism behind this phenomenon is not well understood. In addition, recent studies have suggested that boundary lubrication is highly relevant to slipping and that adhesion and hysteresis are the main contributing factors to boundary lubrication. The purpose of this study is to perform the numerical simulations to analyze the effects of floor roughness (asperity height), sliding speed and material properties on ratio of real area of contact and normal force (relevant to adhesion friction) and hysteresis friction for a viscoelastic shoe material interacting with a hard floor surface. A 3D shoe model and 3D vinyl floor model was simulated with speed 0.01 m/s, 0.5 m/s, 0.75 m/s and 1 m/s in three different floor surfaces. The material property was also varied in the numerical simulations. The study showed that roughness affects both the hysteresis and adhesion friction whereas sliding speed and material property affects the adhesion friction only. The dependence of adhesion and hysteresis friction on roughness, sliding speed and material property is useful in understanding the shoe-floor friction phenomenon and development of slip resistant sports and work shoes.

Insufficient friction at the shoe-floor interface causes a large number of slip and falling accidents each year. Developing solutions for enhancing shoe-floor-contaminant friction requires understanding the mechanisms that contribute to slippery surfaces. Over the past several years, our research group has conducted several experimental and modeling studies to reveal the critical tribological mechanisms contributing to shoe-floor-contaminant friction. This extended abstract will discuss the findings of these studies to: 1) determine the lubrication regime(s) that is/are most relevant to under-shoe conditions during slipping; 2) quantify how under-shoe conditions, shoes and flooring affect the two main contributions to boundary lubrication: adhesion and hysteresis; and 3) describe how this information can be used to design slip-resistant shoes and flooring. To identify the lubrication regime, interfacial pressures at the shoe-floor-contaminant interface were measured and coefficient of friction was monitored. Low viscous fluids and shoes with at least 2mm of tread were found to have negligible interfacial pressures and moderate friction coefficients (0.07–0.40). Untreaded shoes combined with high viscous fluids led to high interfacial pressures that supported up to 40% of the normal load and low friction coefficients (<0.01). These results suggest that mixed/elasto-hydrodynamic lubrication is relevant in some untreaded conditions but that boundary lubrication is relevant for most other conditions. In boundary lubrication, the primary factors contributing to friction are adhesion and hysteresis. Experimental data and finite element models demonstrate that hysteresis friction increases with floor roughness and the ratio of shoe to floor hardness. Adhesion friction is dependent on real area of contact and the shear stress required to break junctions. Experimental data suggests that adhesion is dependent on the fluid lubricant, sliding speed, floor roughness and shoe material. Finite element models confirm that a reduction in the real area of contact occurs with increasing floor roughness and sliding speed, consistent with the experimental adhesion effects. Ensuring that the shoe-floor-fluid interface is operating in the boundary lubrication regime requires establishing minimum tread threshold for fluid lubricants that are likely to be found in a given environment. Designing a high hysteresis shoe-floor combination is preferred because it is relatively unaffected by fluid contaminants or under-shoe conditions (i.e. sliding speed). Therefore, ensuring a minimum tread depth is used along with increasing floor roughness and shoe to floor hardness may be effective in addition to minimum tread thresholds.

A three dimensional finite element model of a rigid sphere lightly sliding over an elastic-perfectly plastic multilayered medium under thermo-mechanical surface loading is developed in order to investigate the mechanical and thermal responses during the light sliding contact of a spherical corner or thermal protrusion of a slider with a rotating disk. In this simulation, the effects of the magnetic recording layer thickness t and sliding contact parameters such as normal load F and friction coefficient μ on maximum temperature T max of head-disk interface (HDI) and maximum scratch depth h on the multilayered disk media are analyzed for both glass and aluminum disks. The results show that the magnetic recording layer thickness t has a negligible effect on the maximum temperature T max of the HDI and scratch depth h on the disk for both types of substrates, but the sliding contact parameters strongly affect the temperature variation and mechanical deformation of the HDI. In addition, the effect of the disk material is also very pronounced.

When a material is subjected to repeated sliding contact, a surface fatigue and crack nucleation may occur on its surface. This damage weakens the material and can lead to debris formation. In many practical engineering assemblies, a thin PEEK (poly-ether-ether-ketone) coating is applied to reduce the damage, since PEEK exhibits wear resistance, corrosion resistance self-lubricating capacity and is lightweight. However, little is known about the effect of coating thickness on the plastic deformation, residual stresses and energy dissipation of PEEK when placed under sliding load. Moreover, the effect of substrate rigidity on coating stresses and deformation under sliding load are also under-researched. Having such knowledge is of significant importance in order to reduce damage of engineering parts and extend their lifetime. In this study, the effects of PEEK coating thickness and substrate elasticity were analyzed using a 3D ball-on-flat finite element model as well as experimental analysis using a linear reciprocating tribometer. The experimental tests were performed with samples that incorporated PEEK coatings of various thicknesses on alumina and steel substrates. It was found that under a constant normal load, stresses, strain and energy dissipation were sensitive to both substrate material and coating thickness. It is shown from both simulation and experiment, the optimum combination, within the range the experiments were conducted, for minimizing residual stress and possible fatigue damage was an alumina substrate with 35μm PEEK coating thickness.

Owing to the fast technological developments, the operating conditions of the machines are becoming very stringent, exact and more demanding. Various journal bearing designs have been developed to prevent the undesired effect of bearing whirl. An example of a successful design is the four-lobe multirecess journal bearing. The bearing which having four curved segments that referred to as four lobes is the four-lobe multirecess journal bearing. Further, as the 4-lobe journal bearing is expected to run over a number of cycles during its lifetime, it is subjected to several start/stop operations. These transient periods causes the bearing bush to wear out between the recesses and significantly affects the bearing performance. The modified Reynolds equation governing the flow of lubricant in the clearance space of bearing have been solved including the combined effects of three aspects, the worn effect, the misalignment angle and offset factors, using an iterative scheme based on FEM and Newton-Raphson method. The simulated results have been presented for a wide range of offset factor δ, wear depth parameter, journal misalignment factors (φ, Ψ) and external load. The simulated results suggests that it is an imperative to account for the effect of wear along with misalignment of journal in order to predict the performance of the bearing accurately. Further, it has been observed that in general as the value of offset factor increases the static and dynamic performance of the 4-lobe four pocket worn misaligned hybrid journal bearing compensated with orifice restrictor is clearly affected as compared to similar four pocket unworn aligned hybrid circular journal bearing. Further the bearing having offset factor δ = 1.2 improves the stability due to increase in the bearing stiffness and reduced magnitude of the cross-stiffness components.

In this work, by utilizing the shear strength criterion for the sliding inception, a finite element model for obliquely loaded spherical contact has been developed, which realized a friction transition from perfect slip case to full stick case with increasing normal approach. Both tangential force and normal force during tangential loading were investigated using different models. It was found that with elastic-plastic normal displacement preload, there is an obvious normal force release during tangential loading. Furthermore, both Coulomb friction model and the proposed model predict a lower tangential force at the same tangential displacement compared to the full stick model. However, the Coulomb friction is more empirically determined with some arbitrary friction coefficient whereas the proposed model is based on physics parameters.

Magnesium-Calcium (Mg-Ca) alloys are promising biomedical materials in manufacturing biodegradable orthopedic fixation implants. Low plastic burnishing (LPB) has emerged as an enabling manufacturing technique to produce superior surface integrity of orthopedic implants to increase corrosion resistance of Mg-Ca implants. The basic understanding on contact mechanics between burnishing ball and the workpiece is essential to understand process mechanics. The contact mechanics is further complicated by normal force reduction due to hydraulic pressure loss, the penetration depth, and elastic recovery. In this study, the measured rolling force shows maximum 23% reduction compared with the theoretical value. A 2D axisymmetric, semi-infinite FEM model has been developed to predict the amount of elastic recovery after burnishing. The dynamic mechanical behavior of the material is modeled using a user material subroutine of the internal state variable plasticity model. The simulated dent geometry agrees with the measured data in terms of dent profile and depth. Acoustic emission (AE) process monitoring signals are recorded and the likely correlation with predicted residual stress, plastic strain, and temperature distributions are studied to obtain an in-process monitoring tool.

Tribological properties during rock cutting under extremely high pressure and high temperature (HPHT) conditions are important in deep mining and drilling operations. In the present investigation, a rock fragmentation process is simulated during mechanical cutting of rock using an explicit finite element code, LS-DYNA. In the simulations, a rigid steel cutting tool of different rake angles was moved at different velocities against a stationary rock material. Rock material properties have been incorporated using an advanced damage constitute material model. In addition, the friction factors at the cutting tool–rock interface were varied in the contact model. The variation of cutting forces, stresses and rock fragment morphology have been investigated. Overall, the results indicate that the explicit finite element model is a powerful tool for simulating rock cutting and the fragmentation process. More specifically, the separation of rock fragments from the rock slab was accurately predicted using the numerical model. The rake angle was found to have significant influence on the fragment morphology during rock cutting. Moreover, the cutting forces and the discontinuous fragmentation process were strongly influenced by the friction and cutting velocity.

The present work proposes a methodology study of Carbon/Carbon composites under dynamical stress and conditions of rubbing contact. It is based on the use of finite elements method (FEM), and homogenization technique is applied an elementary cell of composite under contact condition. The comparison of random equivalent representative volume element underlines the importance to take into account the contact interface in such process.

A bump-type foil bearing consists of a compliant corrugated sheet metal supporting structure that is covered by a thin top foil surface. Bumps serve as stiffener and damping elements to increase the stability of the system while top foil creates necessary wedge surface for aerodynamic film formation. Foil bearings are hard to analyze as flexible foil surface deforms and changes shape while aerodynamic film pressure forms. Iterative solutions required typical of EHL analysis. This work utilizes Reynolds Equation to solve aerodynamic film pressure by coupling structural deformation and the fluid film pressure formation. Bearing performance under various operating conditions and the effect of differential pressure boundary condition on sealing capacity is discussed.

In the paper, a new mechanism for squealing vibration based on the time delay concept of friction is introduced. Firstly, several test results on the time delay between the varying normal force and the consequent varying friction are presented and discussed. Secondly, the motion stability of a friction system with the time delay is analyzed in theory. The result shows that the friction system may become unstable in the presence of the time delay. Thirdly, the advantages and disadvantage of the new mechanism are discussed. The remaining part of the paper will present several research advances in the application of friction-induced vibration theory in the railway industry. In the authors’ work, a finite element model of friction self-excited vibration of a railway wheelset-track system is established. The motion stability of the model is analyzed. Numerical results show that friction between the wheel and rail easily causes self-excited vibration of a railway wheelset-track system. The relation between the rail corrugation and friction-induced vibration is discussed. Finally, the field test results in Subway line 4 of Beijing are presented. The test results show that there exists self-excited vibration of a railway wheelset-track system when vehicles negotiate sharp curved tracks.

A continuum model of adhesive interaction between elastic surfaces is presented. Surface interaction between two elastic spheres is modeled by the Lennard-Jones (L-J) potential. The analysis is based on the equivalent system of a rigid sphere of reduced radius in close proximity with an elastic half-space of effective elastic modulus. The critical gap at the instant of the “jump-in” and “jump-out” contact instabilities is determined by an elastic solution of the half-space surface displacement. A finite element model, in which surface interaction is modeled by nonlinear springs of a prescribed force-displacement governed by the L-J potential, is also used to analyze adhesive surface interaction. The analytical model is validated by finite element results of the critical central gap at the instant of jumpin and jump-out instabilities for different values of the Tabor parameter.

This paper presents a study of the spinning influence on film thickness and friction in EHL circular contacts under isothermal and fully-flooded conditions. Pressure and film thickness profiles are computed with an original Full-System FEM approach. Friction was thereafter investigated using a classical Ree-Eyring model to calculate the longitudinal and transverse shear stresses. An analysis of both the velocity and shear stress distributions at every point of the contact surfaces has allowed explaining the fall of the longitudinal friction coefficient. Moreover in the transverse direction, spinning favors large shear stresses of opposite signs, decreasing the fluid viscosity by non-Newtonian effects. These effects have direct consequences on the friction reduction that is observed in presence of spinning. They are expected to further decrease friction in real situations due to shear heating.

Understanding the tribological aspects of machining processes are essential for increasing the dimensional accuracy and surface integrity of products, as well as gaining a better control of tool wear, chip handling and power consumption. The objective of this investigation is to develop numerical models that accurately predict the chip formation and stress profiles in the work-piece during orthogonal metal cutting using the explicit finite-element method (FEM). In our simulations, a damage material model was utilized to capture the work-piece chip separation behavior and the simultaneous breakage of the chip into multiple fragments. In the simulation, the rigid steel cutter of different rake angles was moved at different velocities against a stationary aluminum work-piece at constant friction for a cutting depth of 1 mm. Overall, the results indicate that the explicit FEM is a powerful tool for simulating metal cutting and discontinuous chip formation. The rake angle had a significant effect on the formation of chip during metal cutting. The formation of discontinuous chip along the contact interface was hypothesized to be due to the internal crack initiation and propagation in front of the tool and above the cutting edge, rather than from the free surface.

Knowledge of contact stresses generated when two surfaces are in contact play a significant role in understanding most mechanisms of friction and wear. Most of present contact models are based on the Greenwood-Williamson (GW) single asperity contact model and a statistical approach is adopted to calculate the real contact area for the entire surface based on the assumption that all the summits have uniform radius of curvatures and their heights vary randomly. But in real cases, the asperity radii vary. For a clear understanding about those aspects, a multiple asperity contact model, based on 3-D rough surface generated is analyzed using a commercial FEM package. Salient aspects of the present model are presented here and results are compared with a single asperity contact model.

A numerical study examined the combined effects of journal misalignment and hydrodynamic lubrication on the stress fields of bearing liner under steady state conditions. The oil pressure, obtained by solving Reynolds equation, is imposed on a finite element model of an elastic liner bearing to calculate its stress fields. It was found that large degree of misalignment increases remarkably the oil pressure, and consequently the stresses in the bearing liner become significantly higher.

In this paper, chip formation process during mechanical cutting of rock is simulated by using an explicit finite element code, LS-DYNA. In the simulation, the work-piece material properties have been modeled using the damage constitute material model. This model simulates the separation of the chip from the work-piece and the simultaneous breakage of the chip into multiple fragments. In the simulation, a rigid steel tool was moved at various sliding velocities, namely 1, 4, 10, 50 and 100 mm/s against a stationary rock material. For a given sliding velocity, the simulations were carried out for various cutting depths, namely 1, 2, 3 and 4 mm. The variation of stresses and the amount of chip formation at different depths of cut and velocities have been investigated. Overall, the results indicate that the explicit FEM is a powerful tool for simulating rock cutting and chip formation. More specifically, the separation of chip from the work-piece at different depths of cut was distinctly shown using this numerical model.

In many mechanisms, global dynamics resulting from operating conditions act as external solicitations for bodies in contact. As a consequence, dynamic instabilities occur in the contact and lead to particle detachments, usually called 3 rd body and wear flow. Obviously, once detached, these particles play an important role in the evolution of the local friction coefficient and thus the local contact dynamics. As the contact is a confined area, experimental investigations have mostly been unsuccessful to locally describe both contact dynamics and material flows. To balance this lack, two numerical methods can be used to solve independently each part of the problem. From a global point of view, local contact dynamics is considered as a local condition for the two 1 st bodies described as continuous media. From a local point of view, the discontinuity of the interface should be taken into account to describe material flows, considering effect of two bodies as boundary conditions. To model continuous aspects, a semi-implicit dynamic Finite Element (FE) method is used taking into account the elasto-plastic behaviour of the two bodies in contact. To model discontinuous effects, a non conventional Discrete Element (DE) method is used, called the Non Smooth Contact Dynamic (NSCD) method coupled with Cohesive Zone Models (CZM) to describe the behaviour of the 3 rd body particles. To give a reliable description of the behaviour of bodies in contact, a coupling of scales is required on both local conditions and boundary conditions which are respectively inputs coming from DE and FE methods. The aim of the present paper is to gather these two complementary approaches by creating a numerical dialogue between DE and FE methods acting respectively at the 3 rd and 1 st bodies scales. After a brief description of each numerical model, the dialogue methodology will be detailed and applied to a reference example where dynamic instabilities occur in the contact. A comparison between results obtained with “classical” FE simulation and “coupled” FE-DE simulations is presented. As a conclusion, this numerical dialogue is a first step toward a better taking into account of the 3 rd body behaviour in continuum model and its consequences on local contact dynamics.

A full-scale 3-D dynamic finite element (FE) model is created to solve the elastic-plastic wheel-rail rolling contact over rough surfaces under different friction forces. Both normal and tangential loads are applied properly. A bi-linear plastic material model is introduced and the real wheel and rail head geometries are simulated. The rolling of a drive wheel with full friction exploitation over a rough contact surface is analyzed in this paper. The stress distributions at the zone with rough surface are derived. From the results at a selected instant, it is found that roughness significantly increases the stress level of the surface layer. Furthermore, plasticity can greatly reduce stress peaks and change stress distributions. The maximum shear stress distribution at the rough surface is also analyzed to assess effects of roughness on fatigue crack initiation.