Abstract
Adhesive and corrosive wear at microscales are quantitatively distinguished in lifetime tests of resonant bulk-fabricated silicon microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). By analyzing the oscillation decay characteristics in different vapor environments, we find that wear is dominated by asperity adhesion during the initial stages of rubbing in dry N2 or O2/N2 mixtures; in these situations the transient wear rate is inversely proportional to the wear depth. But in water or ethanol vapors, chemical reactions between the corrosive adsorbed layer and the silicon substrate limit the wear rate to a constant. These observations are consistent with atomic explanations. The differences between adhesive and corrosive wear explain the advantages offered by lubricating with alcohol vapors rather than using dry environments for tribo-MEMS devices. Compared to ethanol, the relatively poor anti-wear effect of water vapor is explained by aggressive and rapid tribo-reactions.
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Sihan Shen received his Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2006 from Tsinghua University, Beijng, China. After then, he was a Ph.D student in the State Key Laboratory of Tribology at the same university. He has recently obtained his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering at Tsinghua University. His research interests include microelectromechanical systems and microtribology.
Yonggang Meng received his M.S. and Ph.D degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Kumamoto University, Japan, in 1986 and 1989 respectively. He joined the State Key Laboratory of Tribology at Tsinghua University from 1990. His current position is a Professor and the Deputy Director of the laboratory. His research areas cover the tribology of MEMS and Hard Disk Drives, active control of friction and interfacial phenomena and nanomanufacturing.
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Shen, S., Meng, Y. Adhesive and corrosive wear at microscales in different vapor environments. Friction 1, 72–80 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-013-0006-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-013-0006-2