In-situ surface wear assessment using a bearing area curve technique

ABSTRACT Wear during running-in of rolling contact occurs at the surface asperities level and cannot be assessed using a conventional mass loss technique due to the very small changes. The purpose of this paper is to propose an in-situ wear volume measurement using the BAC technique. The experimental work is conducted in-situ and a fixed datum is set as a reference to avoid measurement errors. The wear volume measurement using a proposed BAC technique is in good agreement with the asperities profile-based technique with a small error of 1.67%. The relocation at 90% of BAC is unnecessary as it causes a measurement error of 4.67%. Therefore, the assumption that no change in the asperity valleys beyond 90% of BAC is inaccurate and may lead to error in the wear volume assessment. This study provides a validation of the BAC technique that has been used extensively in wear volume measurement. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT