Mapping sliding wear of steels in aqueous conditions

In studies of sliding wear in dry environments, there have been many attempts at mapping the processes. For steels, the classical "wear map" has been developed and various other studies have extended the approach to composites, ceramics and coated materials. Despite this work, there have been few attempts to extend the methodology to wet conditions, where the wear process interacts with solutions that are defined by pH and electrochemical potential. The object of this work was to study the sliding wear-corrosion behaviour of steels in a pin-on-disc apparatus in aqueous conditions. The effects of applied load and velocity were evaluated at various electrochemical potentials in carbonate/bicarbonate solution pH 9.8). The results were analysed using weight loss and scanning electron microscopy techniques. Wear mechanisms were identified in the various environments and a method of identifying the wear-corrosion transitions, in aqueous conditions, was proposed in the work. These regimes were superimposed on wear-corrosion maps, where the change in wear-corrosion regime was identified as a function of velocity and electrochemical potential. Possible reasons for the differences in the boundaries of the map at various applied loads are discussed in this paper