Mechanical rock cutting is a process encountered in different engineering applications including rock excavation, mining and deep oil well drilling. Rock mechanical properties vary with depth in the subsurface and also at different geographical locations due to different environmental conditions. Understanding of fragmentation mechanisms in specific rock materials allows the determination of optimum cutting parameters that improve cutting efficiency and increase tool life during cutting operations. In the present investigation, numerical models that accurately predict the rock fragmentation and stress profiles in the rock slab during cutting were developed using the explicit finite-element method (FEM). In the numerical models, a damage material model was utilized to capture the rock fragmentation process and a rigid steel cutter (at different rake angles) was displaced at different velocities against a stationary rock slab. Rock slabs with significantly different mechanical properties were incorporated with a constant friction factor and a cutting depth of 1 mm. The variation of cutting forces and stresses, and fragmentation of the rock slab were analyzed. The simulation results indicated that the explicit FEM is a powerful tool for simulating rock cutting as the formation of fragments were distinctly observed at different cutting conditions. The rock mechanical properties and tool rake angle were found to have the most significant effect on the rock fragmentation during cutting operations. The cutting forces were also influenced by mechanical properties of the rock and tool rake angle.
Slip and fall accidents cost billions of dollars each year. Shoe-floor-lubricant friction has been shown to follow the Stribeck effect, operating primarily in the boundary and mixed-lubrication regimes. Two of the most important factors believed to significantly contribute to shoe-floor-lubricant friction in the boundary lubrication regime are adhesion and ploughing. Experiments were conducted using a pin-on-disk tribometer to quantify adhesion and ploughing contributions to shoe-floor friction in dry and lubricated conditions. The coefficient of friction between three shoe materials and two floor materials of different hardness and roughness were considered. Experiments were conducted under six lubricants for a sliding speed of 0.01 m/sec at ambient conditions. It was found that the contribution of adhesion and ploughing to shoe-floor-lubricant friction was significantly affected by material hardness, roughness, and lubricant properties. Material hardness and roughness are known to affect adhesion, with increased hardness or increased roughness typically resulting in decreased adhesion. The smoothest shoe material, while also being the hardest, resulted in the greatest adhesional contribution to friction. The roughest material, while also being the softest, resulted in the lowest adhesional contributions under dry conditions. Canola oil consistently resulted in the lowest percent of full adhesion and water consistently resulted in the highest percent of full adhesion, presumably due to the thickness, of the boundary lubrication layer. Ploughing contribution was dependent upon the hardness of the shoe and floor materials. A positive correlation was found between the shoe and floor hardness ratio and ploughing coefficient of friction.
Abstract Surface texture influences friction and transfer layer formation during sliding. In the present paper three well-defined surface textures, namely unidirectional, 8-ground, and random, were employed on steel plates. Experiments were conducted on a tribological couple – zinc pin against steel plate – using an inclined pin-on-plate sliding tester. It was observed that the occurrence of stick-slip motion, the transfer layer formation and the value of coefficient of friction as well as its two components, namely adhesion and plowing, depend primarily on surface texture. The effect of surface texture on coefficient of friction was attributed to the variation of the plowing component of friction for different surfaces. The plowing component of friction was highest for the surface texture that promotes plane strain conditions while it was lowest for the texture that favors plane stress conditions at the interface. Dimensionless quantifiable roughness parameters were formulated to describe the degree of plowing and hence the plane strain/stress type deformations taking place at the asperity level.
Natural fiber reinforced polymer composites have emerged as a potential environmentally friendly and cost-effective alternative to synthetic fiber reinforced composites. Therefore, in the past decade, a number of major industries, such as the automotive, construction and packaging industries, have shown a considerable interest in the progress of new natural fiber reinforced composite materials. The availability of natural fibers and the ease of manufacturing have tempted researchers to study their feasibility of their application as reinforcement and the extent to which they satisfy the required specifications in tribological applications. However, less information concerning the tribological performance of natural fiber reinforced composite material is available in the literature. Hence, the aim of this bibliographic review is to demonstrate the tribological behavior of natural fiber reinforced composites and find a knowledge about their usability for various applications that tribology plays a dominant role. This review presents the reported work on natural fiber reinforced composites with special reference to the type of fibers, matrix polymers, treatment of fibers and test parameters. The results show that composites reinforced with natural fibers have an improvement in tribological properties and their properties are comparable with conventional fibers. In addition, fiber treatment and fiber orientation are two important factors can affect tribological properties where treated fibers and normal oriented fibers exhibit better friction and wear behavior. This review is trying to evaluate the effect of test parameter including normal load and sliding speed on tribological properties, and the results vary based on type of reinforcement. Generally, due to their positive economic and environmental aspects, as well as their good tribological properties, natural composites are showing a good potential for employing in several applications.
Wear and friction properties of Al2O3 composite reinforced with in-situ formed aluminum borate (9Al2O3·2B2O3) and hexa-boron nitride (h-BN) have been investigated. The initial constituents for the composites were Al2O3, AlN, and H3BO3. The H3BO3 was used as a source of B2O3, where B2O3 reacted with AlN and Al2O3 to form in-situ h-BN and 9Al2O3·2B2O3. Based on the thermodynamic calculation and phase transformation, four different compositions were selected. First, the powders were mixed by ball milling followed by compaction at 10 MPa. The compacted pellets were sintered at 1400 °C in vacuum. The composites were characterized using X-ray diffraction followed by hardness measurement and reciprocating sliding test against alumina and steel balls. The X-ray diffraction results revealed the formation of in situ phases of 9Al2O3·2B2O3 and h-BN that improved the tribological properties. By comparing the tribological performance of different composites, it was found that the hard 9Al2O3·2B2O3 phase maintains the wear resistance of composites, whereas the coefficient of friction is highly dependent on the counter ball. Against alumina ball, the lowest coefficient of friction was observed for the composites with maximum h-BN concentration and minimum aluminum borate concentration, whereas the opposite trend was observed against the steel ball.
