Roughness, surface sliding wear

Bailey WF, Rice SL, Albert RJ, Temin SC Influence of contact stress, sliding velocity, and surface roughness on the sliding wear of a composite restorative. J Dent Res 1981 60 914-918. 

Abrasive wear occurs when a rough, hard surface slides on a softer surface. This results in a series of grooves in the soft material and subsequent formation of wear particles. 

Abrasion is a form of cohesive wear that can occur in two modes, viz. two-body and three-body abrasive wear. Two-body abrasion refers to a hard rough surface, of which the asperities plough through the relatively stiffer counterface. The surface penetrations cause localised plastic displacement and indentations. Three-body abrasion refers to hard particles between two sliding surfaces, ploughing through at least one of the surfaces. The two are not mutually exclusive, as two-body abrasion can often lead to three-body when hard wear particles are detached from a surface. Abrasive wear is dependent on the bulk properties of the materials and the geometry of... 

The wear resistance is good, depending on the roughness, type and morphology of the contacting counterpart sliding surface. 

Fig. 31 Friction and wear mechanisms involved in viscoelastic solid bodies sliding against a rough counter-surface...

Abrasive wear occurs when asperities of a rough, hard surface or hard particles slide on a softer surface, and damage the interface by plastic deformation or fracture in the case of ductile and brittle materials, respectively. In many cases, the wear mechanism at the start is adhesive, which generates wear particles that get trapped at the interface, resulting in three-body abrasive wear. In most abrasive wear situations, scratching is observed with a series of grooves parallel to the direction of sliding.75... 

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