Scuffing as Evaluated From the Viewpoint of Surface Roughness and Friction Energy

Abstract

The surface scuffing occurring in line-contact lubrication is related to the roller’s roughness pattern and asperity height. For surfaces with same contact asperity height, the magnitudes of friction power (Pf = fWVs ) relevant to various roughness patterns are found to have the same sequence as the critical local temperatures. Instead of using the nominal contact area, the real contact area (At ) is used to obtain the true friction power intensity (Ptfi = Pf /At ). A new scuffing failure model (Ptfi · σ−0.317 = C, where σ denote rms roughness) shows that the scuffing resistance of surfaces with transverse roughness pattern is higher than that of surfaces with longitudinal and oblique patterns. For certain roughness patterns, a high root mean square roughness height a is always associated with the high Ptfi value just before scuffing.