Studies on the Coefficient of Friction During the Oblique Impact of a Hard Sphere Against a Ductile Solid Target

Following the original approach of Bowden and Tabor and introducing state variables, an effective friction coefficient μ_e for solid particle erosion is defined as a combination of shearing term and ploughing term. In the case of continuous sliding, based on considering the interaction between asperities under certain condition, it is indicated that during the oblique impact of a hardened steel sphere against a mild steel target, a possible value of μ_e is 0.05, which was chosen in all of the calculations by Hutchings for consistency with both experiments and calculations. In the case of continuous ploughing, it is shown that the value of μ_e is a function of the impact process and the initial impact angle and is greater than 0.05 on an average for Hutchings' experiments. It is suggested that the variation of sliding, rolling and ploughing state at each instant in the impact process makes “the coefficient of friction” equal to 0.05 for Hutchings' experiments, and in general, makes the effective friction coefficient during particle impact on metal far less than the friction coefficient during simple continuous sliding on an average.