Dire Dawa Institute of Technology

School of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering

Tribology [MEng5302]

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 Chapter 1: SUMMARY
• Definition
• Triangle of tribology
• Discipline in Tribology
• Importance of Tribology
• Consequence of tribology
• Component and application
• Friction. Wear, Lubricants
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 Chapter 2

Solid surface characterization

 Introduction
• There are mainly three phases of matter:
 solids
• Solid states
 liquids
 gases.
• Liquid states
• The word fluid is used to describe both gas and liquid phase.
• A Surface is the physical boundary of only one of these phases, such as solid surface,
liquid surface etc.
• An interface is the physical boundary between two adjacent bulk phases.
A solid surface, (a solid-gas or solid-liquid interface ) has a complex structure and
complex properties dependent upon:
 The nature of solids,
 The method of surface preparation,
 The interaction between the surface and the environment.
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 Cont..,
• Properties of solid surfaces affect :
 real area of contact,
 friction
 wear
 lubrication
• Many of the surfaces (all metals except Nobel metals alloys and many
nonmetals) are chemically reactive
 chemical corrosion film ( surface oxide layers or other layers
nitrides, sulfides and chlorides) in the air.
 adsorbed films that are produced either by physisorption or
chemisorption of oxygen, water vapor, and hydrocarbons from the
environment
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 Cont..,
• The presence of surface films (greasy or oily film) affect friction and
wear.
• Sometimes, the films are worn out in the initial period of running and
subsequently have no effect.
• Solid surfaces (irrespective of the method of formation) contain
deviations or irregularities from the prescribed geometrical form
(Surface texture)
• The surfaces contain irregularities of various orders ranging from
shape deviations to irregularities of the order of interatomic
distances ( Macro- and micro/nano topography).

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 Cont..,
• In addition to surface deviations, the solid surface itself consists of several
zones having physic-chemical properties peculiar to the bulk material itself.

Fig.1. Solid surface details: Surface texture and typical surface layers
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Physio-chemical characteristics of surface layers
A. Deformed layer
• As a result of the forming process ( grinding, lapping, machining or
polishing)
 The surface layers are plastically deformed with or without a
temperature gradient become highly strained.
The strained layer is called the deformed layer (work- hardened
layer)
• The amount of the deformed material present and the degree of
deformation are functions of two factors:
 The amount of work or energy that was put into the deformation
process,
 The nature of the material.
• The thickness of the lightly and heavily deformed layers typically
ranged from 1 to 10 and 10 to 100 micrometers, respectively
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B. Beilby layer
Cont..,
• It is a phenomenon that brings about a polished surface.
• The layer has an amorphous or microcrystalline structure.
• The thickness typically ranges from 1 to 100nm.

Fig. 2. Texture of solid layer

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C. Chemically reacted layer
Cont..,
• All metals (except noble metals) and alloys react with oxygen and
form
 Oxide layers in air
Other layers (for example, nitrides, sulfides, and chlorides) in
other environment
• Typical thickness of these layers range from 10-100nm.
The thickness of the chemically reacted layers depend on:
 The reactivity of the materials to the environment,
 Reaction temperature
 Reaction time

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D. Chemisorbed layer Cont..,
• There is an actual sharing of electrons or electron interchange
between the chemisorbed species and the solid surface.
• The solid surface has very strong bonds to the adsorption species
through covalent bonds
• While chemically bonding to the surface, the chemisorbing species,
retain their own individual identity. so that we can, by proper treatment
of the surfaces

Fig. 3. Schematic diagrams of physisorption, chemisorption and chemical reaction

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 E. Physisorbed layers Cont..,
• Adsorbed layers formed from the environment both on metallic or
nonmetallic surfaces.
• No exchange of electrons takes place between the molecules of the
adsorbate and those of the adsorbent.
• Involves van der Waals forces, which are relatively weak

What are the criteria used to differentiate between

Chemisorbed and physisorbed layer?

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 Surface texture
• The surfaces contain irregularities of various orders ranging from shape
deviations to irregularities of the order of interatomic distances
• Surface texture is the repetitive or random deviation from the normal surface

Fig. 4. Surface asperities of a nominal smooth surface

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A. Components of surface texture Cont..,
• Three dimensional topography of the surface : roughness, waviness and error of
form

Fig. 5. Pictorial display of surface texture

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Surface roughness (Nano-and micro-roughness) Cont..,
 Formed by fluctuations in the surface of short wavelengths
 characterized by hills (asperities)and valleys of varying amplitudes
b) Waviness (macro roughness)
 Formed by fluctuations in the surface of longer wavelengths
 may result from such factors as machine or work piece deflections, vibration,
heat treatment etc.
c) Error of form
 a gross deviations from nominal shape of very long wavelength.

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 Cont..,

Fig. 6. Three components of surface texture

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B. Analysis of surface roughness Cont…,
Average roughness parameter
• Surface roughness most commonly refers to the variations in the height of
the surface relative to a reference plane.
• It is usually characterized by one of the two statistical height descriptors :
1. Ra, CLA (center-line average), or AA (arithmetic average)
2. Rq or root mean square (RMS).

Fig. 7. Schematic of a surface profile z(x)

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 Cont..,
• Another measure of surface roughness is an extreme-value
height descriptor Rt (or Ry, Rmax ( maximum peak-to-valley
height or simply P-V distance)).
• Four other extreme-value height descriptors in limited use
are:
 Rp (maximum peak height, maximum peak-to-mean height or
simply P-M distance)
 Rv (maximum valley depth or mean-to-lowest valley height)
 Rz ( average peak-to-valley height),
 Rpm (average peak-to-mean height)

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Table 1. commonly used height parameters Cont..,

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 Cont..,

Fig. 8. Various surface profiles having the same Ra value

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 Cont..,
The effect of roughness in many tribological applications;
a. Height of the highest asperities above the mean line is an important
parameter because damage may be done to the interface by the few
high asperities present on one of the two surfaces;
b. Valleys may affect lubrication retention and flow.

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 Measurement of surface roughness
• The measurement technique can be divided into two broad categories:
1. a contact type in which during measurement a component of the measurement
instrument actually contacts the surface to be measured; and
2. a non contact type (optical etc).
• A contact-type instrument may damage surfaces when used with a sharp
stylus tip, particularly soft surfaces

Fig. 9. SEM micrograph of a trace made by a stylus instrument showing surface damage of electroless
coating (stylus material, diamond;Direstylus
Dawa Institute
radiusof Technology,
0.1 mm; SMIEand stylus load 10 mN or 1 mg) 22
 Cont..,
• For contact-type measurements, the normal loads have to be low
enough so that the contact stresses do not exceed the hardness of the
surface to be measured.
• There are a number of techniques (six categories) that have been that
have been used in laboratories:
1. Mechanical stylus method
2. Optical methods
3. Scanning probe microscopy (SPM)
4. Fluid methods
5. Electrical methods
6. Electron microscopy methods
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 How Understand Solid surface??
SUMMARY
•Classification
•Different types of solid layer
•Surface texture
•Analysis of surface roughness
•Measurement of surface roughness

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 Chapter 3. Friction
• Definition
• Solid-solid contact
• Type of friction force
• Laws of sliding friction
• Mechanism of sliding frictions
• Friction transition during sliding
• Rolling friction
Reading assignment for next class!!
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