On the correlation between wear and entropy in dry sliding contact

Irreversible thermodynamic theory is employed to study the rate of wear as a degradation process in a dry sliding system. It is shown that the wear rate is linearly related to the entropy flow rate. The linear correlation between rates of wear and entropy is verified experimentally for a pair of materials in dry sliding. Degradation coefficient is obtained and a simple approach is proposed for prediction of wear in dry sliding configuration.

Research highlights
► Irreversible thermodynamics is used to study the dry sliding wear of brass versus steel.
► A linear correlation exists between the steady state rates of entropy flow and wear.
► Entropy is found to be a propitious measure for characterizing the tribo-system.
► The degradation coefficient is obtained for the studied sliding pair.
► A simple method is proposed for prediction of wear in dry sliding configuration.