Nicolas Fillot

A Granular Dynamic Model for the Degradation of Material

The work presented here is a model of the degradation of a material (by particle detachment), based on a two dimensional granular dynamic model designed to study the flows of third body particles inside a contact. As the detached particles (third body) cannot exit the contact, the detachments stop after a certain time and a stable layer of third body can be seen. It is shown that the thickness of this stable layer depends both on the conditions applied (normal pressure and sliding speed) and the physicochemical interactions between the detached particles. Such investigations provide better understanding of the mechanism leading to the degradation of material.

Simulation of Wear Through Mass Balance in a Dry Contact

Numerical investigations are carried out to simulate wear and the analysis of these simulations leads to proposing an original new wear law that takes into account interfacial particles in the contact. A 3D Discrete Element Model is presented that simulates the detachment of particles, their flow in the contact and their ejection. It shows that a layer of detached particles can be formed at the interface, separating the solids in contact. The simulations show how influential the contact geometry and the properties of the interfacial particles are in studying wear. The processes of material degradation and particle ejection are then studied separately. Their physical behavior is analyzed and simple analytical expressions are proposed. Consideration of the mass balance of the contact provides an analytical law for wear, involving the fate of the detached particles. Classical wear laws (such as Archards law), assuming that no particle stays in the contact, appear to be a limit case of this model.

A Model for Wall Slip Prediction of Confined n-Alkanes: Effect of Wall-Fluid Interaction Versus Fluid Resistance

It is shown via molecular dynamics simulations that the occurrence of wall slip for linear alkanes confined between geometrically smooth surfaces depends on the wall-fluid interactions and the chain length of the lubricant molecules. A wall slip model based on the competition between these two factors is introduced. A surface parameter accounts for the wall-fluid interaction and commensurability, and is valid for both canonical and complex crystal lattices: this quantity is then linked to the shear stress transferred to the fluid molecules. The lubricant internal cohesion under confinement is described by a bulk viscosity term. Finally, a semi-analytical law for wall slip prediction including both the fluid viscosity and the surface characterization parameter is proposed.

A Molecular Dynamics Study of the Transition from Ultra-Thin Film Lubrication Toward Local Film Breakdown

The transition from ultra-thin lubrication to dry friction under high pressure and shear is studied using molecular dynamics: the quantity of lubricant in the confined film is progressively reduced toward solid-body contact. A quantized layer structure is observed for n-alkanes confined between smooth, wettable walls, featuring an alternation of well-layered, low friction configurations, and disordered ones, characterized by high friction, and heat generation. The molecular structure influences the ordering of the fluid and the resulting shear stress. In fact, Lennard-Jones fluids are characterized by low friction due to the absence of interlayer bridges, opposed to the always entangled states and high shear stresses for branched molecules. Surface geometry and wettability also affect the behavior of the confined lubricant. The presence of nanometer-scale roughness frustrates the ordering of the fluid molecules, leading to high friction states. Furthermore, local film breakdown can be observed when the asperities come into contact, with strong wall–wall interactions causing the maximum in shear stress. Finally, friction is limited to a small, constant value by the presence of smooth, non-wettable surfaces in the system due to the occurrence of wall slip.

Energy dissipation in non-isothermal molecular dynamics simulations of confined liquids under shear.

Energy is commonly dissipated in molecular dynamics simulations by using a thermostat. In non-isothermal shear simulations of confined liquids, the choice of the thermostat is very delicate. We show in this paper that under certain conditions, the use of classical thermostats can lead to an erroneous description of the dynamics in the confined system. This occurs when a critical shear rate is surpassed as the thermo-viscous effects become prominent. In this high-shear-high-dissipation regime, advanced dissipation methods including a novel one are introduced and compared. The MD results show that the physical modeling of both the accommodation of the surface temperature to liquid heating and the heat conduction through the confining solids is essential. The novel method offers several advantages on existing ones including computational efficiency and easiness of application for complex systems.

Numerical insight into heat transfer and power losses in spinning EHD non-Newtonian point contacts:

This article focuses on thermal effects and their consequences in elastohydrodynamically lubricated spinning non-Newtonian point contacts. The particular kinematics of spin is of major interest for the understanding of flange contact in bearings (also known as rib-roller end contact) as well as in the field of continuously variable transmission where energetic efficiency is directly related to spin. A versatile finite element thermal non-Newtonian model is presented and results in terms of pressure, film thickness, temperature, heat fluxes, friction, and power losses are discussed. As spin increases, the central and minimum film thicknesses decrease drastically, the contact temperature rises, and the shearing heat source increases. The heat fluxes are totally reorganized in terms of direction and intensity. Friction values in both longitudinal and transverse directions need to be completed with the calculation of the frictional torque due to spin to take into account the total power losses in the contact. This study intends to draw attention to the necessity of an energetic approach when dealing with spinning contacts.

Friction Coefficient as a Macroscopic View of Local Dissipation

This paper presents an overview of a discrete element method approach to dry friction in the presence of a third body. Three dimensional computer simulations have been carried out to show the influence of the third body properties (and more specifically their adhesion) on friction coefficient and profiles of dissipated power. Simple interaction laws and a cohesive contact are set up to uncouple the key parameters governing the contact rheology. The model is validated through a global energy balance. As it is shown that dynamic friction coefficient can be explained only in terms of local energy dissipation, this work also emphasizes the fact that mechanism effects and third body rheology have important consequences on the energy generation and dissipation field. Therefore, asymmetries can arise and the surface temperature of first bodies can be significantly different even for the same global friction coefficient value. Such investigations highlight the fact that friction coefficient cannot be considered in the same way at the mechanism scale as at the contact scale where the third body plays a non-negligible role, although it has been neglected for years in thermal approaches to study of surfaces in contact.

A Dual Experimental/Numerical Approach for Film Thickness Analysis in TEHL Spinning Skewing Circular Contacts

Studies on the behaviour of rolling bearings show that the position as well as the loading of the rolling element at the flange roller-end contact depends on the momentum created on the roller track caused by local friction variability. This situation is characterized by a skew angle that varies within a limited range in the application influenced also by the clearance in the cage pockets. This paper provides some elements which contribute to increase the understanding of the physical phenomena occurring in lubricated spinning contacts under skew. An experimental investigation is carried out using a unique in-house test rig called Tribogyr, dedicated to large size-contacts with spinning and skewing kinematics. Alongside the experiments, a numerical analysis is conducted, based on a finite element approach, aiming to take into account the multiphysics aspect of this thermo-elastohydrodynamic problem. The model and the experiments show a good agreement. The skew effects on film thickness of spinning flange/roller-end contacts are characterized by a global decrease of central film thickness, mainly due to high shear of the lubricant, involving thermal thinning. The shallow dimple captured by the in situ measurements of film thickness can be explained as a consequence of the viscosity wedge due to different thermal conductivities between glass and steel. The dual experimental–theoretical approach was a useful method that help to study separate phenomena which are naturally coupled each other.

A Numerical Study of Friction in Isothermal EHD Rolling-Sliding Sphere-Plane Contacts With Spinning

This paper presents a study of the spinning influence on film thickness and friction in EHL circular contacts under isothermal and fully-flooded conditions. Pressure and film thickness profiles are computed with an original Full-System FEM approach. Friction was thereafter investigated using a classical Ree-Eyring model to calculate the longitudinal and transverse shear stresses. An analysis of both the velocity and shear stress distributions at every point of the contact surfaces has allowed explaining the fall of the longitudinal friction coefficient. Moreover in the transverse direction, spinning favors large shear stresses of opposite signs, decreasing the fluid viscosity by non-Newtonian effects. These effects have direct consequences on the friction reduction that is observed in presence of spinning. They are expected to further decrease friction in real situations due to shear heating.Copyright

Rheology of an Ionic Liquid with Variable Carreau Exponent: A Full Picture by Molecular Simulation with Experimental Contribution

Abstract The rheological behavior of an ionic liquid was investigated by means of molecular dynamics simulations with experimental contribution, under conditions close to those found in the elastohydrodynamic and the very-thin film lubrication regimes. The molecular model was applied to nearly 200 temperature–pressure–shear rate cases, without any parameter adjustment. Experiments were conducted on a rheometer and a high-pressure falling-body viscometer. This unique combination of numerical and experimental tools has enabled the full description of the ionic liquid rheological response to extreme conditions of temperature, pressure and shear rate. In the linear domain, a very good consistency between the two computational approaches (nonequilibrium molecular dynamics, equilibrium molecular dynamics via the Green–Kubo formalism) and the experiments was obtained on the Newtonian viscosity. Reliable values of the pressure–viscosity coefficient, another rheological characteristic necessary for predicting film thickness in the regimes of interest in this work, were inferred. Compared with a conventional lubricant of almost identical Newtonian viscosity, the pressure–viscosity coefficient of the ionic fluid is much lower, its variations with temperature remaining, however, very similar. The application of the time–temperature–pressure superposition principle and the regression to the Carreau equation for describing the nonlinear domain have revealed, for the first time, significant variations in the exponent of the Carreau model which have been correlated with the changes in temperature and pressure.