Wear
Add a Wear subnode to model mechanical wear created when the contacting surfaces are sliding along each other. Typically, the wear rate is a function of the contact pressure and the slip velocity.
The selection of the Wear node is the same as that of its parent Contact node. If significant wear can be expected on both surfaces in a contact pair, you can add two Wear nodes.
As wear involves a rate equation, it is only possible to compute wear in time-dependent studies. For other study types, the Wear node is ignored.
The Wear node is only available with some COMSOL products (see https://www.comsol.com/products/specifications/).
Wear Model
Select a FormulationDeformed geometry or Offset-based. When Deformed geometry is selected, the geometry of the domain is actually changed, and a set of extra degrees of freedom are added to the model. For the Offset-based formulation, the computed wear depth hwear is added as an offset to the contact condition.
Select a Wear modelGeneralized Archard or User defined.
For Generalized Archard, enter a Wear constant, kwear, a Reference contact pressure, Tn,ref, and an Exponent, n. The wear rate is defined as
Here, Tn is the contact pressure, and vslip is the slip velocity. For a classical Archard equation, n = 1. The reference contact pressure, Tn,ref, can be chosen arbitrarily, and is used only to obtain consistent units. In most cases, Tn,ref, should be chosen as the unit pressure in the current unit system (for example, 1 Pa).
For User defined, enter an expression for the general source term, f, which defines the wear rate. The default is an expression similar to 
(1e-9[m^2/N]*solid.cnt1.wear1.Tn)*solid.cnt1.wear1.vslipnorm.
This expression provides the names of the local variables for contact pressure and slip velocity, inserted in a classical Archard equation.
Finally, select a Wear surfaceDestination or Source. If both surfaces in the contact pair are subject to wear, use two separate Wear nodes.
It is possible to use the Rigid Material material model on the source side.
Deforming Domain Settings
This section is only available when Formulation is set to Deformed geometry.
Choose how to set the Deforming domain selectionAutomatic or Manual. When Automatic is selected, the deforming domains are assumed to be all domains adjacent to the destination or source boundaries, as selected by Wear surface. This is the default. By selecting Manual, a new section, Deforming Domain Selection, is displayed. There, you can make a manual selection of the domains to act as deforming.
In order for the mesh smoothing in the deforming domain to work properly, the mesh on all exterior boundaries, except the wear surface, should be free to slide in the tangential directions. Choose how to set the Sliding boundary selectionAutomatic or Manual. When Automatic is selected, a sliding boundary condition added to all exterior boundaries of the deforming domain, expect the wear surface. This is the default. By selecting Manual, a new section, Sliding Boundary Selection, is displayed. There, you can make a manual selection of the sliding boundaries. The selection on which wear is applied is always excluded.
The remaining settings in the section affect the detailed mathematical model used for remapping the mesh in the deforming domain. For details, see Deforming Domain.
In most cases, the Automatic option will set up an appropriate Deforming domain selection and a corresponding Sliding boundary selection. For complex geometries it might, however, be necessary to manually control these selections. In case the automatic selections are incorrect, it is often displayed as an error from the solver, or clearly visible in the results of the exterior edges of the wear surface.
Discretization
This section is present when Formulation is set to Offset-based, or when the Wear node is used in the Shell or Membrane interfaces.
In these cases, the amount of wear will be a separate field that is computed by a time integration of the wear rate expression. In the case of Solid Mechanics or Multibody Dynamics, the field is added to the contact offset. For Shell and Membrane, it is subtracted from the thickness of the elements.
Select a Shape function typeFrom physics, Discontinuous Lagrange, or Gauss point data. When selecting From physics, the additional thickness field is approximated by the same shape functions that are used for the dependent variables of the physics.
The order of the shape functions is in all cases selected automatically, based on the discretization in the physics interface.
Including Wear, and The Wear Node in the Structural Mechanics Modeling chapter.
Wear in the Structural Mechanics Theory chapter.
Deformed Geometry and Moving Mesh in the COMSOL Multiphysics Reference Manual.
Location in User Interface
Context Menus
Ribbon
Physics tab with Contact selected in the Model Builder tree: