Scratching of polymers—Modeling abrasive wear

This paper aims to model abrasive wear for polymers using single-track and intersecting scratching techniques. Scratch and pin-on-disc wear tests were conducted on five different commercial polymers. Wear debris generated by multiple-pass single-track and intersecting scratching tests were compared and correlated with the specific wear rates of the same polymers in a pin-on-disk test using ground steel surface (Ra = 1.34 μm) as the counterface. It is the purpose of this paper to establish a correlation between scratching phenomenon and abrasive wear of polymers. Confirming previous studies, for polymers, the traditionally computed scratch hardness does not follow any trend with the abrasive wear. However, if the amount of wear debris in scratching is quantitatively measured and plotted against specific wear rate in pin-on-disc test, a reasonable linear relation is obtained.