GENERALIZED ARCHARD LAW OF WEAR BASED ON RABINOWICZ CRITERION OF WEAR PARTICLE FORMATION

Abstract

According to the Archard law of adhesive wear, the wear volume is proportional to the normal force, the sliding distance, and inversely proportional to the hardness of the softer of contact partners. This law does not contain any properties characterizing “adhesion” of materials, e.g. the work of separation, either inside of the material or at the interface. The criterion for formation of wear particles, first formulated by Rabinowicz in 1958, on the contrary, is based on the interplay of elastic energy and work of adhesion and contains as governing parameters the modulus of elasticity, hardness and the work of separation. Following recent advances in understanding and simulation of wear, we discuss the ways how both laws could be melted together to a “generalized” Archard-Rabinowicz law of wear.