The objective of this study was to investigate the wear characteristics of the U-shaped rings of power connection fittings, and to construct a wear failure prediction model of U-shaped rings in strong wind environments. First, the wear evolution and failure mechanism of U-shaped rings with different wear loads were studied by using a swinging wear tester. Then, based on the Archard wear model, the U-shaped ring wear was dynamically simulated in ABAQUS, via the Umeshmotion subroutine. The results indicated that the wear load has an important effect on the wear of the U-shaped ring. As the wear load increases, the surface hardness decreases, while plastic deformation layers increase. Furthermore, the wear mechanism transforms from adhesive wear, slight abrasive wear, and slight oxidation wear, to serious adhesive wear, abrasive wear, and oxidation wear with the increase of wear load. As plastic flow progresses, the dislocation density in ferrite increases, leading to dislocation plugs and cementite fractures. The simulation results of wear depth were in good agreement with the test value of, with an error of 1.56%.
Keywords: finite element modelling; surface analysis; surface morphology; wear; wear modeling.