The frictional behavior of diamond-like carbon (DLC) films varies with environmental condition.  One theory asserts that the cause of variations in the frictional performance is environmental contaminants adsorbing onto the DLC film surface.  Testing of the frictional performance of DLC films in a pin-on-disk contact has mapped the transient behavior of the friction coefficient.  A model for fractional coverage, based on the adsorption of environmental contaminants and their removal through the pin contact, is developed.  The rate of adsorption is taken from Langmuir’s model [1], which is combined with the removal ratio from Blanchet and Sawyer [2].  The coefficient of friction is based on the average fractional coverage under the pin contact.  The model also gives a closed-form expression for the steady-state fractional coverage.  Model calculations compared favorably to the time progression of the friction coefficient for a series of earlier experiments on a superlow friction DLC coating [3], when the fractional removal term was allowed to increase with increasing sliding speed.

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Journal of Tribology
vol 126 (2004) pp. 615-619