On wear pattern generation in elastic systems

In systems with moving contacts spatially periodic wear patterns may appear on the contact partners surfaces. There is agreement that the patterns are related to structural resonances. Using a simple model with a moving point contact and an idealized wear model the present work reviews some of the present understanding of wear-pattern generation. Then the effect of randomly specified relative velocities on the wavelength selection process is investigated. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)