Fatigue wear: A contribution to the wear phenomena of ion-plated thin metallic films

A wear model based on the fatigue failure of asperities on ion-plated surfaces is presented. It is suitable for ion-plated hard substrates sliding against hard counterfaces where asperity penetrations do not occur. The constants specific to the analysis are evaluated. A wear equation which is dependent on the mechanical properties of the system, the surface topography and the operating conditions is obtained. The wear rates are expressed as functions of the normal load, the sliding speed, the track width, the standard deviation of the surface asperities, the mean radius of the asperities, the stiffness of the asperities and the static yield strength of the multilayered material.