THE COMPETING WEAR MECHANISMS AND WEAR MAPS FOR STEELS

The development of wear maps is connected to the definition of dominan t wear mechanisms and transition regions for pairs rubbing under diffe rent wear conditions. The well-known wear maps allow us to reveal the dominant contact conditions (mechanical approach) or the wear mechanis ms (structural approach). The purpose of this work is to investigate t he dominant and competive wear mechanisms of steel under different con tact conditions. For comparison of results, the tests were carried out at the same normalized force (Lim's and Ashby's map). Oxidational wea r is a dominant wear mechanism in the region of elastic and elastic-pl astic contact and well-known parameters of the wear map may be used. T he wear rate is defined by a number of competing wear mechanisms (oxid ational wear, ploughing, delamination and adhesion) in the plastic reg ion. The number of competing mechanisms is increased with a loading. T here exists a definite critical depth of damage accumulation for each wear mechanism. The possibility of estimating a critical depth for dam age accumulation under different contact conditions is discussed.