Identification of wear process parameters in reciprocating ball-on-disc tests

Wear test results are presented for a spherical indenter in reciprocal motion interacting with soft (aluminium alloy) and hard (construction steel) substrates. The aim of this paper is to provide evidence of the evolution of the contact zone, specification of wear scar depth and surface roughness in the contact zone. Numerical analysis of the interaction of the sliding sphere with the wear track provided contact zone dimensions, although these differed from the experimental data. The incremental wear factor is also introduced in the paper, while the formulae for the wear volume of the sphere recommended by ASTM have been improved.