Abstract
The tribological characteristics of cold drawn stainless steel bars were presented in a previous paper. The existence of three different wear modes was reported. This paper describes the cause and the transition of these modes using martensitic stainless steel. The results of experiments show that Mode 1, initial mild wear, is caused by the lubricating layer applied during specimen manufacture. Mode 2, severe adhesive wear, is caused by severe adhesion of the wear particles and the sliding surface due to the crushing of wear debris and material agglomeration. Mode 3, relatively mild wear, is caused by the accumulation of the fine oxidized wear debris on the sliding surface.
