Thermodynamical Description of Running Discontinuities: Application to Friction and Wear

The friction and wear phenomena appear due to contact and relative motion between two solids. The evolution of contact conditions depends on loading conditions and mechanical behaviours. The wear phenomena are essentially characterized by a matter loss. Wear and friction are in interaction due to the fact that particles are detached from the solids. A complex medium appears as an interface having a strong effect on the friction condition. The purpose of this paper is to describe such phenomena taking account of different scales of modelization in order to derive some macroscopic laws. A thermodynamical approach is proposed and models of wear are analysed in this framework where the separation between the dissipation due to friction and that due to wear is made. Applications on different cases are presented.