Whilst contact loading is known to affect wear, the general stress field is rarely considered. Steel fretting (and low amplitude reciprocating) wear contacts typically develop through a transient regime and wear by multiple mechanisms. It is expected that if these mechanisms were controlled by plasticity or fatigue, the wear rate would be altered by external stresses. Whether or not these stresses must be accounted for is an important consideration. This paper assesses the sensitivity of wear rate to external stresses, experimentally. An apparatus was designed to apply external loads to fretting wear contacts. The wear rates throughout the tests were insensitive to changes in external load, indicating that wear models need only model stresses due to contact loading, and external loads can be disregarded.

虽然已知接触载荷会影响磨损，但很少考虑一般应力场。钢微动（和低振幅往复运动）磨损接触通常通过瞬态状态和多种机制磨损发展。预计如果这些机制由塑性或疲劳控制，磨损率将被外部应力改变。是否必须考虑这些应力是一个重要的考虑因素。本文通过实验评估磨损率对外部应力的敏感性。设计了一种装置来向微动磨损触点施加外部载​​荷。整个测试过程中的磨损率对外部载荷的变化不敏感，这表明磨损模型只需要模拟接触载荷引起的应力，而可以忽略外部载荷。