Wear Behaviour of the AL7175 Alloy under Different Bulk Stress States

Abstract

In what concerns the stresses involved in the process, most wear tests (namely those in the pin on disc and the pin on plate configurations) are usually solely concerned with the stress state in the contact originated by the normal and the tangential loads applied in the test. In some practical applications, however, besides the local contact wear stresses, the component might be under additional stress states, either tension or compression. This is, for example, the case of disc brakes in which thermal deformation of the disc induces bulk stresses. It is reasonable to expect that the wear behaviour of materials might be affected by the stress states at which they are subjected, either locally or in the bulk. The present work presents an investigation of the wear behaviour of the Al 7175 alloy when subjected to different stress states. It was observed that the bulk stress state has a substantial influence on the wear behaviour of the material.