Effect of the Normal Load on the Release of Aerosol Wear Particles During Abrasion

A study highlighting the aspect of the generation of aerosol wear particles during abrasion is presented. The substrate chosen is a masonry brick which is reinforced with TiO2 nanoparticles. This is done using a pin on plate arrangement. The material removal mechanism via fracturing is first understood. The parameter chosen for the study is the normal load. The formed aerosols are then characterized by their number concentration, particle size distribution, individual particle shape, size and chemical composition. Having irregular shapes, the aerosol wear particles have unimodal size distributions with 5-7 % (in mass) of Ti content. The size mode increases with the increase in normal load. However, at higher normal loads, while there is an unexpected increase in the wear mass, the maximum concentration of the aerosol particles saturates. During the whole study, no free nanoparticles of TiO2 were found.