Determination of Steady-State Adhesive Wear Rate

Wear rates obtained from different investigators could vary significantly due to lack of a standard test method. A test methodology is therefore proposed in this paper to enable the steady-state wear rate to be determined more accurately, consistently, and efficiently. The wear test will be divided into four stages: (i) to conduct the transient wear test; (ii) to predict the steady-state wear coefficient with the required sliding distance based on the transient wear data by using Yang’s second wear coefficient equation; (iii) to conduct confirmation runs to obtain the measured steady-state wear coefficient value; and (iv) to convert the steady-state wear coefficient value into a steady-state wear rate. The proposed methodology is supported by wear data obtained previously on aluminium based matrix composite materials. It is capable of giving more accurate steady-state wear coefficient and wear rate values, as well as saving a lot of testing time and labour, by reducing the number of trial runs required to achieve the steady-state wear condition.