Feature based characterization of worn surfaces for a sliding test

In this paper a novel 3D surface characterization technique—feature based characterization—is applied to analyse worn surfaces from a ball on disc sliding test. This technique concentrates on analysis of surface features that are related to tribological behaviour. The worn surfaces of discs are segmented according to their surface texture primitives in order to analyse the shapes of the asperities. In order to remove shapes and unnecessary features of the ball surfaces, a filtering technique through wavelet analysis is applied. Then the significant features are extracted by means of a marker controlled watershed transformation. As a result, the relationship between the feature based parameters and the tribological behaviour is presented.