Contact (flash) temperature, pin-on-disk

Bulk and flash frictional contact temperature rise for a pin-on-disk sliding contact, from normal load, sliding velocity, friction coefficient, pin geometry (radius, length) and material properties.

✓ validated against legacyoriginal: /calculators/e3_1.htm

Contact (flash) temperature, pin-on-disk — original diagram from /calculators/e3_1.htm

Normal load, FNSliding velocity, Vm/sFriction coefficient, μPin (contact) radius, r10⁻³ mPin length, L10⁻³ mThermal conductivity, pin, K₁W/mKThermal conductivity, disk, K₂W/mKThermal diffusivity, disk, κ₂10⁻⁶ m²/sBrinell hardness (softer material), HBGPa

Bulk temperature rise, dT_bulk1.9786385380806446 °C

Real/nominal contact area ratio, Ar/An0.0003060671982536449

Asperity contact radius, r_j15.384615384615383 10⁻⁶ m

Flash temperature rise, dT_flash196.9393167672795 °C

Total contact temperature rise, dT198.91731440242143 °C

If Ar/An (real/nominal contact area ratio) exceeds 1, the legacy source flags the input as out of range and zeroes all outputs; this port reproduces that clamp. See header comment for a legacy variable-reuse quirk (the `Ar` used in the final dT blend is a differently-defined quantity than the `Ar` used earlier for dTflash) reproduced byte-for-byte.

Method & references

Ashby, M.F., Abulawi, J., Kong, H.S., 1991, "Temperature maps for Frictional Heating in Dry sliding", Tribology Transactions, Vol.34, No.4, pp577-587.
Johnson, K.L., 1968 — combined bulk/flash temperature blend dT = dTflash + (1 − Ar/An)·dTbulk.

The computation is a literal port of the original client-side JavaScript from /calculators/e3_1.htm. Results are verified equal to the original by an automated golden-master test. No formula has been re-derived or “improved”.

Contact (flash) temperature, pin-on-disk — Engineering ABC