• • Friction coefficient and wear rate of plasma-sprayed YSZ-CaF2 coatings decrease monotonically with increasing temperature, reaching minimum values at 800 °C; this enables reliable operation of aero-engine high-temperature moving components up to 800 °C without external liquid lubricants.
• • Finite element simulation of wear volume agrees with experimental measurements to within less than 3% error across all tested temperatures, validating the thermomechanically coupled ball/coating model and the temperature-dependent Archard wear simulation method for quantitative wear prediction.
• • At elevated temperatures, surface concentrations of ZrO2 and Al2O3 wear-resistant phases and CaF2 lubricious phase increase, producing a continuous protective oxide layer that reduces interfacial contact pressure and promotes more uniform pressure distribution, directly mitigating localized wear and extending component service life.
• • The proposed simulation framework, combining Hertzian contact validation with ALE adaptive meshing and temperature-dependent wear coefficients, provides a predictive tool for coating tribological behavior evolution, enabling design optimization and life prediction of YSZ-CaF2 coatings in aerospace applications.