Discussion: “Modeling of Flash Temperature for Elastic Sliding Contact of Single Micro-Asperity Pair” (Wu, Z., Zhang, Y., Xu, Y., Jie, D., and Jackson, R. L., 2024, ASME J. Tribol., 146(1), p. 011702)

Abstract

Reflecting on the application and implications of this work [1], the authors realized that a few items should be discussed.Although the work is for elastic sliding contact, it could be adapted for elastic–plastic contact by employing an existing sliding elasto-plastic model [2,3]. These models are slightly different but originated at the same time. The paper by Jackson et al. provides equations to predict the tangential and normal forces during an elastic–plastic sliding. The model by Green [2] is based on a strain energy balance and is calibrated to finite element results found in a thesis by Moody [4]. It might be possible to adjust the factor given by Eq. (11) in the paper [1] for a maximum pressure predicted by these works. The maximum pressure for an elastic–plastic model will likely be lower than the elastic case, and the flash temperature will also be lower. Perhaps, the plastic deformation of asperities could effectively limit the magnitude of the flash temperature.