Wear of Metals

Book excerpt: Wear of Metals deals with the mechanisms underlying the wear of metals such as brass, cast iron, and aluminum-silicon alloys. Topics covered include surface topography, contact of solids, and friction, along with the effect of sliding and rolling resistance. Fretting, wear under rolling contact, and the friction and wear of polymers are also discussed. Comprised of 27 chapters, this volume begins with an overview of adhesion, types of wear, and friction and wear experiments. The following chapters explore surface topography and the contact (single and multiple) of solids; molecular theory of friction and wear; running-in wear and abrasive wear; and surface contaminants. An oxidational hypothesis of wear is then presented, and the phenomenology of metal transfer involving steel on brass and steel on steel is described. The remaining chapters consider sliding in surfaces and subsurfaces; the effect of temperature and speed on friction and wear; the role of solubility and crystal structure in friction and wear; and wear of brass. The two principal effects associated with rolling, namely, the slip or creep and energy loss, are also examined. Examples of tribological components are given. This book should be of value to undergraduates and research workers in the fields of metallurgy and engineering.