LAUSR

Abstract The aim of this paper is to develop an efficient theoretical method to analyze the nanoscale wear process of diamond-like carbon considering frictional heat. The wear process is divided into burnishing of outlying asperity phase and atomistic wear phase. The governing equation for atomistic wear rate is derived by stress assisted reaction kinetics. Considering the influence of interfacial temperature, the temperature-dependent activation parameters that significantly determine wear resistance are firstly obtained using Piecewise Linear Method. The study shows that the activation energy linearly increases with the increasing of temperature. This explains how wear resistance can remain stable. It is also found that wear rate will increase as interfacial stress and curvature of protrusion increase. The study provides new insights on nanoscale wear considering temperature effect.