Detailed behaviors of nanoscale textured surfaces during the reciprocating sliding contacts are still unknown although they are widely used in mechanical components to improve tribological characteristics. The current research of sliding contacts of textured surfaces mainly focuses on the experimental studies, while the cost is too high. Molecular dynamics(MD) simulation is widely used in the studies of nanoscale single-pass sliding contacts, but the CPU cost of MD simulation is also too high to simulate the reciprocating sliding contacts. In this paper, employing multiscale method which couples molecular dynamics simulation and finite element method, two dimensional nanoscale reciprocating sliding contacts of textured surfaces are investigated. Four textured surfaces with different texture shapes are designed, and a rigid cylindrical tip is used to slide on these textured surfaces. For different textured surfaces, average potential energies and average friction forces of the corresponding sliding processes are analyzed. The analyzing results show that "running-in" stages are different for each texture, and steady friction processes are discovered for textured surfaces II, III and IV. Texture shape and sliding direction play important roles in reciprocating sliding contacts, which influence average friction forces greatly. This research can help to design textured surfaces to improve tribological behaviors in nanoscale reciprocating sliding contacts.
Nanoscale adhesive contacts play a key role in micro/nano-electro-mechanical systems as the dimension of the components come to nanometer.Experimental studies on nanoscale adhesive contacts are limited by some uncertain factors and the cost of experiments is too high.Besides,nanoscale textured surfaces are difficult to process and nanoscale adhesive contacts of textured surfaces are still lack of investigation.By using multiscale method,which couples molecular dynamics simulation and finite element method,two-dimensional nanoscale adhesive contacts between a rigid cylindrical tip and an elastic substrate are investigated.For the contacts between the rigid cylindrical tip and smooth surface,Von Mises stress distributions,the maximum Von Mises stresses,and contact forces are compared for different radii to show the size effects and adhesive effects.The phenomena of hysteresis are observed and more obvious as the radii of the tip increase.The influences of indentation depth and indentation speed are also discussed.Then two series of textured surfaces are employed,and the influences of the texture asperity shape,asperity height,and asperity spacing on contact forces are studied.The contact forces comparisons show that textured surfaces can reduce contact forces effectively in the range of the two series.Contact forces of textured surfaces increase as the asperity heights increase,and textured surfaces with smaller asperity spacing will get higher contact forces.Contact forces may be controlled through textured surfaces in the future.The obtained results will help to improve contact condition and provide theory basis for texture design.
There are two separate traditional approaches to model contact problems: continuum and atomistic theory. Continuum theory is successfully used in many domains, but when the scale of the model comes to nanometer, continuum approximation meets challenges. Atomistic theory can catch the detailed behaviors of an individual atom by using molecular dynamics (MD) or quantum mechanics, although accurately, it is usually time-consuming. A multiscale method coupled MD and finite element (FE) is presented. To mesh the FE region automatically, an adaptive method based on the strain energy gradient is introduced to the multiscale method to constitute an adaptive multiscale method. Utilizing the proposed method, adhesive contacts between a rigid cylinder and an elastic substrate are studied, and the results are compared with full MD simulations. The process of FE meshes refinement shows that adaptive multiscale method can make FE mesh generation more flexible. Comparison of the displacements of boundary atoms in the overlap region with the results from full MD simulations indicates that adaptive multiscale method can transfer displacements effectively. Displacements of atoms and FE nodes on the center line of the multiscale model agree well with that of atoms in full MD simulations, which shows the continuity in the overlap region. Furthermore, the Von Mises stress contours and contact force distributions in the contact region are almost same as full MD simulations. The method presented combines multiscale method and adaptive technique, and can provide a more effective way to multiscale method and to the investigation on nanoscale contact problems.
