Fractal properties of worn surface of Fe-based alloy coatings during rolling contact process.

The rolling contact fatigue (RCF) failure procedure of Fe-based alloy coating, fabricated by high efficient plasma spray (PS) technology, was investigated by a double-roller test machine with oil lubrication under pure rolling contact condition. The fractal dimension (FD) was utilized to quantitatively characterize the profile of the worn surface at different experiment stage and the failure mechanism of the coating was discussed. The results indicated that the nonlinear morphologies of the worn surface of Fe–Cr alloy coating possessed excellent fractal properties. The failure procedure could be divided into four stages according to the value and change rule of FD, i.e. (1) running-in stage, (2) stable abrade stage, (3) accelerated damage stage, (4) unstable removal stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]