AN EXPERIMENTAL AND THEORETICAL INVESTIGATION OF PLOWING, CUTTING AND WEDGE FORMATION DURING ABRASIVE WEAR

In abrasive wear, three wear modes were observed: cutting, wedge or prow forming and ploughing. These modes were observed with brass (60 Cu-40 Zn), S45C (0. 45% carbon steel) and SUS304 (18Cr-8Ni austenitic stainless steel) in the scanning electron microscope and were related to load and frictional force. The degree of penetration, D//p, was introduced as an index to describe the severity of contact. A wear mode diagram was developed to show the possible region for each wear mode of cutting, wedge forming or ploughing as a function of the parameters D//p and the shear strength at the contact interface.