THE COMPETING WEAR MECHANISMS AND WEAR MAPS FOR STEELS

The development of wear maps is connected to the definition of dominant wear mechanisms and transition regions for pairs rubbing under different wear conditions. The well-known wear maps allow us to reveal the dominant contact conditions (mechanical approach) or the wear mechanisms (structural approach). The purpose of this work is to investigate the dominant and competive wear mechanisms of steel under different contact conditions. For comparison of results, the tests were carried out at the same normalized force (Lim's and Ashby's map). Oxidational wear is a dominant wear mechanism in the region of elastic and elastic-plastic contact and well-known parameters of the wear map may be used. The wear rate is defined by a number of competing wear mechanisms (oxidational wear, ploughing, delamination and adhesion) in the plastic region. The number of competing mechanisms is increased with a loading. There exists a definite critical depth of damage accumulation for each wear mechanism. The possibility of estimating a critical depth for damage accumulation under different contact conditions is discussed.