The effect of wear on ThermoElastic Instabilities (TEI) in bimaterial interfaces

There is ample evidence of ThermoElastic Instabilities (TEI) occurring in sliding contacts. The very first experiments of JR Barber in 1969 suggested wear interacts in the process of localization of contact into “hot spots”. However, studies on the interaction of TEI with wear are scarce. We consider the case of two sliding halfspaces and make a perturbation analysis permitting the formation of waves migrating over the two bodies, in presence of wear. We find that for exactly identical bodies wear does not affect the stability boundary. In the other limit case of bad conductor against a good conductor, wear tends to suppress TEI completely. Intermediate cases show a complex range of possible effects: for certain thermomechanical properties wear may even reduce the critical speed.