Modeling a high-speed pin-on-disk experiment

The purpose of this work is to analyze the heat transfer characteristics of Vascomax (R) C300 during high-speed sliding. This work extends previous research that is intended to help predict the wear-rate of connecting shoes for a hypersonic rail system at Holloman Air Force Base to prevent critical failure of the system. Solutions were generated using finite element analysis and spectral methods. The frictional heat generated by the pin-on-disk is assumed to flow uniformly and normal to the face of the pin and the pin is assumed to be a perfect cylinder resulting in two-dimensional heat flow. Displacement data obtained from the experiment is used to define the moving boundary. The distribution of temperature resulting from transient finite element analysis is used to justify a one-dimensional model. Spectral methods are then employed to calculate the spatial derivatives improving the approximation of the function which represents the data. It is concluded that a one-dimensional approach with constant heat transfer parameters sufficiently models the high-speed pin-on-disk experiment.