Nanotribological simulations of multi-grit polishing and grinding

SJ Eder and U Cihak-Bayr and A Pauschitz, WEAR, 340, 25-30 (2015).

DOI: 10.1016/j.wear.2015.03.006

A quantitative molecular dynamics (MD) study of nanoscopic wear under dry grinding and polishing conditions with multiple abrasive particles (grits) is presented. The initial topography of the monocrystalline iron surface has a pseudo-random Gaussian height distribution, and the 16 rigid abrasive grits have cuboid or spherical geometries. The grinding and the polishing process are differentiated via the kinematic constraints imposed on the abrasive grits. A post-processing scheme based on drift velocity analysis dynamically identifies atoms as either part of a wear particle, the substrate, or the sheared zone between the two. The knowledge of each atom's zone affiliation and a time-resolved, mesh-based evaluation of the substrate topography lead to a break-down of the asperity volume reduction into its constituents: pit fill-up volume, individual wear particles, shear zone, and sub-surface substrate compression. It was found that the initial geometric type of the abrasive grits as well as their kinematics strongly influences the quality of the final surface. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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