Bioinspired Imbricated Microthorn Scale Surfaces and their Abrasive Wear Performance

Abstract

HighlightsImproving the wear resistance of soil-engaging components is an urgent need for the agricultural machinery industry.Sandfish (Scincus scincus) epidermis with exceptional wear resistance was selected as a bionic prototype.By adopting a bionic engineering approach, a novel bioinspired microthorn scale surface was designed and prepared.Numerical simulations were performed with EDEM to investigate the wear resistance mechanism.Abstract. To solve the problem of abrasive wear failure of the soil-engaging components of agricultural machinery, the imbricated microthorn scale structure of the sandfish (Scincus scincus) epidermis surface was selected as a bionic prototype. By adopting a bionic engineering approach, nine bionic microthorn scale surface specimens with different geometric structure parameters were designed and prepared. Wear resistance tests were performed in a rotating abrasive wear testing system. The results of the wear tests showed that the imbricated microthorn scale structured surfaces had substantially less abrasion loss than a conventional smooth surface. The influence of the geometric structure parameters on the wear performance was also identified. Numerical simulations were performed to explore the wear resistance mechanism of the imbricated microthorn scale structured surfaces. The abrasion of the bionic surfaces mainly occurred at the edge of the microthorn that faced the abrasive particle flow. The trajectory of subsequent abrasive particle flow was modified by the large dispersion of particle flow; hence, the number of particles that impacted the surface decreased. Therefore, the wear resistance performance of the bionic surfaces was enhanced. This bioinspired surface can provide a technical reference to mitigate the abrasive wear failure of the soil-engaging components of agricultural machinery. Keywords: Abrasive wear, Archard wear, Bionic design, Discrete element method, Scale surface.