Debris effect on the surface wear and damage evolution of counterpart materials subjected to contact sliding

This paper aims to explore the debris effect on surface wear and damage evolution of counterpart materials during contact sliding. A cylinder-on-flat testing configuration is used to investigate the wear behaviours of the contact pair. To explore the roles of wear debris, compressed air is applied to remove the debris in sliding zones. The comparative study demonstrates that the influence of debris removal is related to the surface properties of contact pairs. When substantial wear debris accumulates on the tool surface, debris removal can considerably alter surface damage evolution, resulting in different friction transitions, distinct surface morphology of contact pair, as well as different rates of material removal. It has been found that the surface damage evolution will not reach a stable stage unless the increase of wear particle number ceases or the average size of wear particles becomes lower than a specific threshold. However, the influence of debris removal reduces when the adhesion between the contact pair materials gets smaller.