Sliding wear behavior of polymers studied with mesoscopic molecular dynamics

Insufficient attention to tribology of materials, including friction, scratchability, and wear, causes severe financial losses in industry. Despite this situation persisting for decades, scratch resistance is still not sufficiently understood. This applies even more to sliding wear, which is multiple scratching along the same groove. We have employed molecular dynamics computer simulations to study sliding wear of amorphous polymeric materials. Our simulations pertain to a coarse-grain model of high-density polyethylene. The obtained results include analysis of penetration depth, residual depth, segment displacement as a function of time, and recovery percentage for a range of indenter diameters and force magnitudes. Effects of each of these parameters on the tribological properties are evaluated, providing useful information that can enable tailoring materials for specific applications.