Prediction of wear volume on sliding contacts using cellular automata

In previous research, by conducting fretting analyses and experiments on tin-plated connector terminals, the importance of rotational motion and its advantages in modeling the fretting phenomena were revealed. Rotational motion is dominant in the typical fretting driven by vibration. Additionally, linear sliding is difficult to analyze because of the asymmetry of the fretting trace. This paper presents the predictions of comparative abrasion quantities for rotational sliding. The wear volume was estimated using focused ion beam (FIB) milling and imaging. Though the actual fretting trace is not perfectly symmetric, the model can be constructed on the basis of axial symmetry for explaining average wear volume. An algorithm for the predicting comparative abrasion quantities in the rotational case was applied. It uses shear stress distribution along with the radius of the fretting traces. Cellular automaton is the main process of this analytical approach. The attributes of a cell are shear stress, wear volume, and material strength. The stress and volume (height) are updated at each increment.