TABLE OF CONTENTS Koji Kato
Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, Nihon University, Koriyama City, Japan
When two solid surfaces are brought into contact and are followed by separation or sliding, wear particles are generated at the contact interface and they behave as contaminants for the contact surfaces and surroundings.
These particles are generated by the mechanisms of adhesive, abrasive, plastic flow, fatigue, corrosive, diffusive, and melting wear, some of which take place at the same time in the contact region [1, 2].
The size of a wear particle ranges from the scale of nm to that of m, and the microstructure of the particle material is very different from that of the original surface material in general. Both dry and wet contact systems generate wear particles of this character. Wear particles and the mechanisms of their generation are described in this chapter from this view point.
Any solid surface is not ideally smooth from a microscopic view point. The cleaved surface of mica sheet is rough at the scale of a silicon atom. The well polished silicon wafer surface of single crystalline structure is still rough at the scale of nanometer. The surfaces of standard glass mirrors, optical lenses, and fine diamond tips of manipulators have surface asperities whose height ranges from about 10 to about 100 nm. The surfaces of machine elements and devices made of metals, ceramics or plastics have surface asperities whose height ranges from about 0.1 to...
