The NVP-BSK805 contact was fully immersed in oil, and the sliding velocity of roller over the sample with nanogeometric roughness was 0.3 m/s. For such contact load and speed, boundary lubrication regime is realized [5]. This leads to inevitable adhesive contact wear for the samples with flat surface [12]. Both samples with flat surface and with pre-formed grooves were tested. For samples with directed structure, the orientation of grooves was parallel to the direction of sliding. Results and discussion A typical resulting wear scar after friction test of sample

with polished surface is shown in Figure 4. Wear products are seen around the contact as brown waste material. The presence of debris on the sample confirms that adhesive friction conditions are realized in the experiment and actual wear process takes place. It should be noted that wear products are gathered mostly in front of the contact entry.

There are buy Erismodegib also seen two curled streams which carry away wear products around the contact from the sides. Considering that the hydrodynamic pressure in front of the contact is larger than Selleck CP-690550 behind it, such arrangement seems explainable. Obviously, wear products cannot be streamed directly through the contact, because the gap between sliding surfaces is very small, especially in boundary lubrication conditions. Possibly, some reverse circulating current of lubricant is formed near the contact entry, which could lead to the observed pattern of wear product deposition, but this question needs further investigations. Figure 4 Wear scar and wear products on the surface of test sample with initially flat surface. Fundamentally different picture is observed when the sample has grooves on the initial surface. After initial run-in stages, wear products do not accumulate anymore around the contact in substantial quantities and cannot be detected visually. Microphotographs of wear scar obtained with scanning electron microscope

(SEM) show completely different topography of the surface for the case of flat and grooved samples (see Figure 5). The scar on initially flat sample reveals complex profile. It contains multiple scratches, Reverse transcriptase significant number of craters, and lumps of pulled out metal, which are the result of adhesive transfer of material. Most damaged areas are located at the contact exit. Similar effect was observed earlier [13]. We think this effect is caused by vacuumization, which is strongest at the contact exit. Thus, we conclude that vacuumization is responsible for most of the adhesive wear and leads to damage of the area near the contact exit. Figure 5 Details of wear scar after friction test for samples with flat and grooved surfaces. In the case of grooved sample, the scar has much smoother profile without any signs of adhesive interaction of surfaces.