An experimental simulation of cutting wear in three-body abrasion

Plastic deformation wear and cutting wear are two of the major types of wear that occur in three-body abrasion of materials. The authors' previous work has shown that cutting wear has a strong influence on the relationship between the wear loss and the hardness of materials. Often the curve of the wear loss relative to material hardness appears S-shaped because of the dependence on cutting wear. However, the detailed mechanism of this process is still unclear at present. In the present paper two-body abrasion tests were carried out to simulate the cutting wear in three-body abrasion of materials with a range of hardness values. It is concluded that maximum cutting wear intensity occurs as the hardness of the tested materials is varied. This is the underlying reason behind the S-shaped characteristic of three-body abrasion of materials. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.