W ear, zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA 77 (1982) 13 - 28 13 THE ROLE OF SPECIMEN STIFFNESS IN SLIDING AND IMPACT WEAR* STEPHEN L. RICE Department of M echanical Engineering, Institute of Materials Science, The University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06268 (U.S.A.) HANS NOWOTNY and STEVEN F. WAYNE Department of Metallurgy, Institute of Materials Science, The University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06268 (U.S.A.) (Received March 5,1981) Summary The results of pin-on-disc sliding tests and of impact wear tests are presented. Titanium alloy specimens were used for the sliding tests and high strength steel specimens were used for the impact tests: in both types of test stainless steel was the counterface material. The test duration, the nominal contact stress and the effective “stiffness” of the pins were varied; the effective stiffness was varied by changing the unsupported length of the pins while all other experimental conditions were maintained invariant. Experi- mental data on the wear track depth and roughness, obtained by profilom- etry, and on the specimen and counterface surfaces, which were examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) techniques, are presented: the data include morphological features and material transport observations. Subsurface sections of specimens were analyzed by SEM, EDX techniques and transmission electron microscopy. Characteristic subsurface zones are identified and described with respect to both morphology and composition in the near-surface microstructure. The data clearly indicate that the stiffness is an important factor in experimental work in sliding as well as in impact wear. 1. Introduction The solid contact of two material bodies in a wear test clearly involves the elastic-plastic properties of both specimen and counterface. In particular, elastic properties serve to establish gross contact conformity while plastic behavior is important both in asperity interaction and in subsurface zone *Paper presented at the 8th Meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development International Research Group on Wear of Engineering Materials, Paris, France, M ay 19 - 21,198l. 0043-1648/82/0000-00001$02.75 @ Elsevier Sequoia/Printed in The Netherlands