Prediction of Wear Rate Dispersion in Mixed Lubrication

Mixed lubrication is usually related to the partition of contacts, and these latter may be divided into two categories. The first includes all asperities working in thin lubricated film (physico-chemical film) conditions. This situation corresponds to local boundary lubrication and is characterised by a local friction coefficient around 0.1. The second category contains all other asperity types. Due to the existence of a thick lubricant films asperities belonging to the second category exhibit a low friction coefficient. The global tribological behaviour for a given contact, however, is function of both categories, since it involves asperities from both categories.