Electrochemical Simulation of the Current and Potential Response in Sliding Tribocorrosion

Valuable insights into the wear-corrosion behavior of metals, as well as into the tribocorrosion field through the development of simulation models of tribocorrosion experiments, can contribute in rationalizing wear-accelerated experiments and their open circuit potential (OCP) behavior under rubbing. These results demonstrate that mathematical models of controlled tribo-electrochemical contacts can complement the physical experiment and add valuable understanding to the tribological behavior of metals, alloys, and generally to materials in an electrochemically active environment. The excellent agreement of experimental wear data and the experimental OCP curves with the OCP simulations with time establishes the concepts underlying the galvanic coupling model as a valid methodological approach toward a quantitative description and mechanistic understanding of the tribo-electrochemical experiment. Besides analyzing stellite tribocorrosion, application of the model to Al alloy data has helped us quantify the relative contributions of chemical and mechanical wear and reveal the underlying synergy. Ti metal tribocorrosion under variable load has revealed that the contact pressure Pav, can reach much lower values within the experimental time domain and finally be the cause of interruption of the initial wear mechanism.