Examination of Abrasion Resistance Criteria for Some Ductile Metals

Abstract

Various abrasive wear resistance criteria are reviewed. These include hardness, modulus of elasticity, elastic strain limit, elastic-to-plastic contact transition factor, and elastic strain energy capacity. Experimental data from Khrushchov and Babichev, for the abrasion of a series of copper-nickel and lead-tin binary alloys, are used to evaluate the postulated abrasive wear resistance criteria. Modulus of elasticity shows a good correlation. Hardness is found not to correlate with wear resistance. The other abrasion resistance criteria are found to give ambiguous results. Wear resistance does not accurately follow the E1.3 power law found by Khrushchov for large differences in Young’s modulus when the changes in Young’s modulus are small, say within a factor of three. When comparing ductile materials of the types examined here for abrasion resistance, over a range of Young’s modulus within a factor of three, one can assume to a good approximation that abrasion resistance varies directly with Young’s modulus.