On the Rabinowicz like criterion of formation of wear particles in a system with a soft surface layer

In 1958, Ernest Rabinowicz suggested a simple criterion distinguishing the regimes of plastic smoothing and formation of wear particles in a contact of homogeneous sliding bodies. However, he did not consider any detailed mechanism of either plastic smoothing or debris formation. In a recent paper in Nature Communications, Molinari et al. have confirmed the criterion using explicit mesoparticle simulation. The work of Molinari's group provides a strong support to the general concept of Rabinowicz which is based on the consideration of competition of plastic deformation and fracture. It is interesting to apply this concept to more general configurations than those considered by Rabinowicz and Molinari's group. An important case is a system having a very soft surface layer. In the present paper, the analysis similar to that of Rabinowicz is applied to materials with soft layer. It is shown that in this case, too, both cases of plastic deformation and debris formation may occur. It would be interesting to verify this prediction by explicit meso-particle simulations similar to those of Molinari's group.

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