A universal wear law for abrasion

Finding a wear law that is valid over a wide range of conditions and materials would have enormous practical value. The authors have previously discovered a simple relationship describing the evolution of the abrasive wear rate of steel sliding against boron carbide-coated coupons, and have developed a model accounting for its kinetics. The authors show here that this wear equation accurately describes the evolution of abrasive wear rates for several additional material pairs and contact conditions that were tested, as well as for all of the material pairs for which literature data could be found. The only material parameters are the initial abrasiveness and the initial rate at which the abrasiveness changes with number of cycles. No other wear law so simple, accurate and widely applicable is known.