Large-scale molecular dynamics simulations of wear in diamond-like carbon at the nanoscale

We perform large-scale molecular dynamics simulations on diamond-like carbon to study wear mechanism and law at the nanoscale. Our simulations show that material loss during sliding varies linearly with normal load and sliding distance, consistent with Archard's law. Our simulations also show that the number of chemical bonds across the contact interface during sliding correlates well with friction force, but not with material loss, indicating that friction and wear follow different mechanisms. Our analysis reveals the following wear mechanism: the shear traction causes mass accumulation at the trailing end of contact, which is then lost by a cluster detachment process.