In tribological research, workers measure friction and wear of components or component parts using benchtop test equipment. It is generally easy to measure the coefficient of friction during sliding (unidirectional or reciprocating), but the measurement of wear is difficult because the wear displacement is often on the order of nanometers, or wear mass is on the order of nanograms, which cannot be measured. A method is presented here to calculate the wear volume from the bearing area curve (Abbott) using three-dimensional profiles of the test sample, obtained before and after sliding. We describe the theory of the method, which uses data from three-dimensional profiling software. We then validate the method using prototype surfaces where the wear volume is known exactly and compare results. Here we concentrate on surfaces with surface roughness and honing marks, such as cylinder liners samples.
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