Do short strokes against Si3N4 wear diamond faster than long strokes?

Wear and friction cause irreversible damage to the surfaces of a material, which can increase the economic cost. It is therefore interesting to investigate if dia- monds can help reduce this problem. We studied diamond-coated SiC-on-Si3N4 wear by sliding the diamond-coated SiC sphere on a Si3N4 wafer in a non- repeated fashion. The experiment was conducted with three different stroke lengths: a short stroke (800 x 25 μm), a middle stroke (80 x 205 μm), and a long stroke (8 x 2005 μm). Additionally, an impact experiment was conducted to examine whether impact and/or pull-off wear influences the wear of the dia- mond. A Si3N4-on-Si3N4 sliding wear experiment was also conducted for two different stroke lengths to observe how friction changes when there is no plow- ing. The results showed that friction decreases faster for the short stroke than for the long stroke in the diamond wear experiment. This is not the case for the Si3N4-on-Si3N4 wear experiment, where the friction increases faster for the shorter stroke (800 x 205 μm) than for the longer stroke (8 x 20005 μm). These results show that impact and or pull-off play an important role in the wear process.