A Novel Model Based on Asperities Contact for the Assessment of Tribocorrosive Wear in Marine Applications

Abstract Tribocorrosion refers to a degradation mechanism resulting from the synergistic interaction between mechanical wear and corrosion, acting positively or negatively. It is a widespread phenomenon across several industrial sectors—such as marine, nuclear, automotive, and biomedical—due to its substantial impact on equipment in terms of failures, downtime, and maintenance costs. To date, common methods to investigate tribocorrosive phenomena include experimental techniques such as voltammetry and spectroscopy and analytical models. This study proposes an innovative approach based on Greenwood–Williamson (GW) elastic theory to estimate tribocorrosive material loss, by considering kinetics repassivation and dynamic changes of the surface topography after each sliding cycle. To validate, experiments were conducted using an AISI 316L stainless steel–alumina tribosystem immersed in a 3.8% NaCl artificial seawater solution (pH 8.2), tested under three different sliding frequencies. The experimental setup involved an in situ reciprocating tribometer coupled with a potentiostat and an optical confocal/interferometric microscope. Results indicate that sliding speed significantly influenced the tribocorrosive response, and the proposed model demonstrated a partial agreement with the experimental findings.