Date of Award

2013

Publication Type

Doctoral Thesis

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Department

Mechanical, Automotive, and Materials Engineering

Keywords

Applied sciences, Diamond-like carbon, Adhesion, Friction, Thin films, Fuel cells

Supervisor

Ahmet T. Alpas

Rights

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Abstract

This study aimed at depicting atomistic and microstructural aspects of adhesion and friction that appear in different automotive applications and manufacturing processes using atomistic simulations coupled with tribological tests and surface characterization experiments. Thin films that form at the contact interfaces due to chemical reactions and coatings that are developed to mitigate or enhance adhesion were studied in detail. The adhesion and friction experiments conducted on diamond-like carbon (DLC) coatings against Al indicated that F incorporation into DLC decreased the coefficient of friction (COF) by 30% -with respect to H-DLC that is known to have low COF and anti-adhesion properties against Al- to 0.14 owing to formation of repulsive F-F interactions at the sliding interface as shown by density functional theory (DFT) calculations. F atoms transferred to the Al surface with an increase in the contact pressure, and this F transfer led to the formation of a stable AlF3 compound at the Al surface as confirmed by XPS and cross-sectional FIB-TEM. The incorporation of Si and O in a F-containing DLC resulted in humidity independent low COF of 0.08 due to the hydration effect of the Si-O-Si chains in the carbonaceous tribolayers that resulted in repulsive OH-OH interactions at the contact interface. At high temperatures, adhesion of Al was found to be enhanced as a result of superplastic oxide fibers on the Al surface. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of tensile deformation of Al nanowires in oxygen carried out with ReaxFF showed that native oxide of Al has an oxygen deficient, low density structure and in O 2 , the oxygen diffusion in amorphous oxide healed the broken Al-O bonds during applied strain and resulted in the superplasticity. The oxide shell also provided nucleation sites for dislocations in Al crystal. In fuel cell applications, where low Pt/carbon adhesion is causing durability problems, spin-polarized DFT showed that metals with unfilled d orbitals increase the Pt/graphene interface strength from 0.009 J/m 2 to above 0.5 J/m 2 . Ir, Os, Ru, Rh and Re were the most effective modifiers, as they distributed their electronic charges evenly between Pt and graphene surfaces.

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