Self-Protection of High Wear Materials

Thick intermediate films or third bodies with high load-carrying capacity are generated through wear by different materials. A balance thus naturally exists between the material wear rate and the protection afforded by these compacted wear debris films. The length of a specimen situated parallel to the sliding motion or wear debris transport direction, necessarily plays a role different from its width. For the same unit, loading material wear protection increases with length and is independent of width. The wear problem can, therefore, be approached with two-dimensional models. Debris motion explains why wear data obtained with the same materials on machines with specimens of different shapes are difficult to correlate.