A generalised sliding wear model for inhomogeneous coatings

In this work, a recently proposed continuum mechanics based multiscale approach to study the sliding wear behaviour of homogeneous coatings is generalised to components coated with an initially inhomogeneous material The approach is suitable for either single phase or multiphase materials with and without porosities, and relies on a representative volume element of the coated system and periodic unit techniques to incorporate explicitly second phase particles or porosities. A wear relation is derived by expressing the rate of material removed in terms of an average ratchetting strain measure integrated along the sliding direction, and the average depth at which the inelastic deformation within the coating localises. The model is used to investigate the sliding wear of a Mo coating containing 5% randomly distributed porosities.