A Study on Third Body Abrasion in the Small Clearance Region Adjacent to the Contact Area

Abrasion in fretting wear mechanism is studied experimentally with the specimens of two different shapes of spacer grid spring and fuel tubes of a nuclear fuel. Reciprocating sliding wear test has been carried out in the environment of air and water at room temperature. Especially, third body abrasion is referred to for explaining the wear region expansion found during the slip displacement increase with constant normal contact farce. It is found that the expansion behaviour depends on the contact shape. The small clearance between the tube and spring seems to be the preferable region of the wear particle accumulation, which causes third body abrasion of the non-contact area. Even in water environment the third body abrasion occurs apparently. Since the abrasion on the clearance contributes wear volume, the influence of the contact shape on the severity of third body abrasion should be considered to improve the grid spring design in the point of restraining wear damage of a nuclear fuel.