desgastes

Desgastes is the Portuguese term for the gradual loss of material from surfaces that occurs during relative motion between contacting bodies, driven by mechanical action, chemical reactions, or environmental conditions. In engineering, desgastes is a central topic within tribology, the study of friction, lubrication, and wear.

Common wear mechanisms include abrasive wear, in which hard particles or asperities remove material from a surface; adhesive wear, where material transfer occurs under high contact pressures; fatigue wear, caused by repetitive stress cycles that create cracks and spalling; erosive wear from particle impacts in a fluid; corrosive wear where chemical attack accelerates material loss; fretting wear from small, repetitive oscillatory movements at contact.

Causes include insufficient lubrication, improper material pairings, high loads, misalignment, roughness of contacting surfaces, contaminant particles, temperature effects, and environmental factors such as humidity or chemical exposure.

Effects range from increased clearances and noise to higher energy consumption and reduced performance, potentially leading to premature failure of components such as bearings, gears, and seals.

Mitigation strategies encompass selecting compatible materials with adequate hardness, applying surface coatings or heat treatments, designing for appropriate sliding or rolling contact, ensuring proper lubrication regimes and cleanliness, using suitable tolerances and alignment, and applying condition monitoring and predictive maintenance to adjust operating conditions (loads, speeds, temperatures).

In practice, desgastes is assessed through wear tests and wear coefficients, and its study supports maintenance planning, product design, and reliability engineering.